Subject: Re: Ifconfig
To: None <tech-userlevel@NetBSD.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 03/27/2006 03:24:57
> The thing is most people seem to want to be able to replace the old
> behaviour of ifconfig which requires -a flag to list all the devices
> with just ifconfig as on most of the other open source operating
> systems.

For what it may be worth, I oppose this change.  Running ifconfig
without any arguments is a convenient, easy, and cheap way to get a
reminder of what its flags are.  (These are as compared to looking at
the manpage, which can be difficult sometimes - as in single-user with
/usr/share/ inaccessible, or when on through a channel whose terminal
emulation does not match any of the stock types.)

> Is there any reason we still keep this rather annoying behaviour and
> what do you guys think about this change?

Actually, it's the other behaviour that's "rather annoying"...to me.
Annoying is in the eye of the (putatively) annoyed.

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