[ On Tuesday, August 13, 2002 at 16:09:47 (+1000), Richard Grace wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Automatically starting programs...
>
> 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.

Your shool of thought assumes that you have no way to manage files in
the OS in order to track their origins and to upgrade them, etc.

That's not true with the use of pkg_add et al (given a few basic
assumptions and simple hierarchy rule extensions, and/or registration of
the base-OS files in the pkg db, which is now almost trivial).

> I just use which, whereis, locate or as a last resort, find.

Sure, but once things get as complex as they are in some systems
(eg. RedHat), then you'll have so many results that you'll still be left
with no clue as to where you should really be looking.

> I think it's good karma to know what's on your systems.

No doubt and the more rigidly a system is organized to fit a single
simple pre-defined hierarchy definition then the easier it is to
understand your systems.  Every type of thing should hve one, and only
one, well defined place.  :-)

> 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.

Exactly!  :-)

> 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.

Presumably you never add anything manually, but only through base-OS
installs or though packages.  Doing so without putting it in a separate
hierarchy would violate your requirement to keep the base OS (and the
packages, which being managed sets of files _must_ be put in the same
category, if not the same hierarchy, as the base OS files) untouched.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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