jkunz said: 
> If I wane do a upgrade, I can simply locate the source of the programm /
> subsystem in /usr/src/..., cd to it, update the source via patches or
> CVS, recompile and install it. This is IMHO the canonical BSD Unix way
> to go. I don't like this cut-in-to-an-infenite-amount-of-packages
> approach some wannabe *ix systems use. 

precisely! we don't have the problem that those other systems have, of 
tons of uncertainty about dependency and crap. If it's in the standard 
distribution, it's maintained and verified all by those who publish the 
distribution; you have the standard distribution and you know it works. 
If you want to change it, then by all means be my guest, but then it's 
your issue. Also, for changing things, instead of some wanking forest of 
packages, we have a source tree. One, coherent, consistent, unified 
source tree. It models the distribution in structure and is buildable in 
chunks of wonderfully choosable granularity, from a single object file up 
to the whole system. The true and proper way to make modifications to a 
BSD system is to naturally have the source tree there and to applyu 
patches to the source tree, and rebuild what you want and install it. The 
makefiles in the source tree are the CLOSEST i'd ever want us to get to a 
'package' system, and by the way , i think this is vastly superior to 
what the others have! Let's keep BSD as BSD and stop trying to copy the 
wannabees! They dont even know what real UNIX is, and we _have_ it and 
are tryign to copy _them_? let's keep our priorities straight. BSD is 
_better_ and if we throw away the advantage, then sure we might win the 
favor of the wannabees, but weve ruined the whole point of maintaining 
Berkeley UNIX. It's NOT linux. It's NOT sysV. It's BSD. 

> One reason why I like NetBSD this much is the easy way to install it.
> Boot the machine in some way (mostly via network) disklabel, newfs,
> untar, disklabel -B / installbot, cd /mnt/etc ; vi fstab rc.conf,
> reboot - thats it. 

exactly! I keep full sources online on all my systems, and that's just 
how it should be! We _have_ a source tree! the others dont even have 
somethign that organizaed and cleanly thought out! do we want to blow all 
that to pieces and take on a much inferior mechanism just because it's 
popular? not me! 

> > And no, I don't think people are even suggesting anything like SysV
> > run-levels or inittab.  The whole rc.d thing was to make maintenance
> > easier, both for the base system and third party packages.
> I really don't like this rc.d stuff, but I must agree to this argument. 

I dont like it and i dont see how it makes system administration any 
easier. It might be that i'm just happier in a BSD environment, but the 
linux and slo-laris systems i have to administer are a real pain to 
modify stuff on- onehas to follow a whole forest of variable and links 
and crapola through half a dozen files before one finds some tiny shred 
of shell in some fragmented file somewhere in rc.d/deepinthetree and one 
has to do this three tiems in three different shreds of shell to get 
anythign changed. What's so bad about having a simple rc script that 
runs, and maybe runs rc.local for some local-specific stuff? how was that 
too complicated? Now, certainly, if things are fragemnted into a million 
pieces, then maybe it's easier to be modified by some dumb system 
administration -tool- but i do NOT advocate dumbing BSD down to appeal to 
moron wannabe-administrators and destroying a superior thing to win over 
a few more users. Leave those to the linux world, they seem quite happy 
there, and let's keep BSD the place where people who are serious about 
computing go for a system. We don't need to be popular or well-known, we 
need to be the BEST. right now we _are_ the best. let's not ruin that in 
the name of popularity. 

Isildur