Henry B. Hotz writes:
> I don't subscribe to this list (only to port-mac68k) so please reply
> directly by email.
> 
> Like the title says, why the change in /etc/netstart as of 4-1-97?  I can
> understand wanting to change the way various daemons are started, but why
> change the interface config files from hostname.* to ifconfig.*?

The interfaces that defined how those files had to be used were
totally changed to accomodate the ifconfig "media" support recently
added. Also, those files had a very confusing format.

> That name convention was one of the few things that survived from
> SunOS to Solaris, and now we are deliberately making ourselves
> different?  Why?

We were already different. Under SunOS and Solaris, those files just
contain a host name. We included a plethora of information in them. We
were already totally incompatible. Have to be -- we have different
stuff we need to support.

It was decided that to make sure people don't accidently think that
they are dealing with the hostname.* format, we would chang ethe name.

> I have no problem with the change in the content of the files.  Just
> copying the entire line to the ifconfig command is fine.

Realize that if we had left the name the same but totally changed the
format, people who didn't realize a change had happened would have
been trying to debug the problem for days. We made it easy to detect
that you needed to upgrade.

Perry