[ On Sunday, July 9, 2000 at 14:18:38 (-0400), Greg Hudson wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: login.conf for selecting password verification method (was Re: Kerberos is on by default?) 
>
> >> What does "specialized knowledge" mean?  I suspect more people know
> >> how to "rpm -i" an SRPM and "rpm -bc" the spec file than know how
> >> to use the NetBSD build system.
> 
> > I'm talking about the Linux system itself, not add-on SRPMs.  Ever
> > try to build a Linux kernel from scratch?  ;-)
> 
> If you mean the kernel, you probably should have said so, especially
> since this thread is about login authorization, not the kernel.  I
> wasn't talking about "add-on" SRPMs; I was talking about the SRPMs Red
> Hat ships, which are just as easy to use as "add-on" SRPMs.

Ah, well that's something I did not know about.  Last time I looked
(RH-5?) it didn't seem as though system sources (eg. login and the
libraries) were available as SRPMs, though no doubt I didn't look very
hard....

> And if we are talking about the kernel, then yes, I have built a Linux
> kernel from scratch.  Have you ever tried to build a NetBSD kernel
> from scratch?  Can you honestly say that either requires more
> "specialized knowledge" than the other?  Both builds are weird and
> confusing to a person who has no prior knowledge of the underlying
> hardware platform.

This is indeed wandering far of the central point of this thread, but if
I'm not mistaken the BSD kernel build process is at least better
documented in what were at one time more widely available places.

I think there are fewer surprises and fewer complexities in *BSD's
kernel build process too.  Certainly in NetBSD the process is highly
regularised across disparate platform types.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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