Core packages are using %config for files being installed under /usr

[Laurent Rineau]

On Wednesday 28 February 2007 22:49:26 Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 09:00:09PM +0100, Enrico Scholz wrote:
> > Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net (Axel Thimm) writes:
> > >> >  While reviewing some fonts-* packages , I saw files being installed
> > >> >under /usr are marked as %config in their SPECS as shown below
> > >> >%config(noreplace) %verify(not md5 size mtime)
> > >> > %{ttfontdir}/fonts.alias
> > >>
> > >> ...
> > >> IMO, the fonts.alias example is a fair use of %config that's ok in my
> > >> book.
> > >
> > > But we do want /usr to be "stateless".
> >
> > afaik, 'fonts.alias' has nothing todo with stateless or non-stateless.
> > This file won't be touched by any system program (in opposite to
> > fonts.dir and fonts.scale) but might be used to configure preferences for
> > certain fonts (e.g. 'fixed' or 'cursor').
>
> Which is really hard to do on a real-only filesystem.

I do not really understand your point. /etc/ could be chosen read-only as well 
by the administrator.

When an administrators set a partition to be read-only, we still has the power 
to remount it rw temporarily, to modify config files.

(I do have friends that have head a /etc read-only, on a server, times ago. It 
is usable, as long as you have scripts to remount things rw before upgrades 
and config tunings.)

-- 
Laurent Rineau
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LaurentRineau