>>> Chuck Yerkes <chuck+nbsd@snew.com> 13/08/2002 14:47:52 >>>

> And I'm a huge fan of having config files and all startups
> guided by /etc/.

Yes, and no.  My school of thought, is that the base OS
is left untouched by packages, unlike most Linux distros
which lump everything in /etc and /usr.  Anything which
is installed separately to the base OS, should be in a
separate place.  It makes administration so much easier.

If you have a bunch of workstations (for example) which
all mount the same /usr (and all dirs below) as a read-only
filesystem, then surely they would all be running the same
software anyway?  Otherwise there's very little sense in
using the same filesystem.

And setting variables in /etc/rc.conf can tailor this using
the current pseudo-standard for filesystem heirarchy.

Presumably each machine has it's own /etc, or in the case
that they are all the same, using DHCP, then conditional
statements based on the hostname, or IP address can
be used.

> I HATE having to hunt around the disk to figure out why
> that old version of pwcheck (whatever) keeps coming up.

I just use which, whereis, locate or as a last resort, find.
I think it's good karma to know what's on your systems.
The pkgsrc and packages systems are a great way to be
able to identify what is and what isn't part of an installed
package.  Creating your own packages is easy, and a
sure way to know that the old version is completely gone.

> So I'm hardcore that config files go in /etc/ (presume /usr/ and
> down are shared between many machines; and are read only).

That's kind of what I mean by my first comments.

> rc stuff?  I'll take /etc/rc.pkg.d/ or or /etc/rc.local.d/ over
> /usr/BLAH/etc/rc.d/

I like the current pseudo-standard for filesystem heirarchy.
Any software that installs in /usr/local has it's config files in
/usr/local/etc, and likewise with /usr/pkg.

I've never been a fan of NetBSD using /usr/pkg, but that's
my problem, not a problem with NetBSD.  I simply use a
symlink, /usr/local -> /usr/pkg and that's fixed.

Richard.