[ On Friday, March 19, 1999 at 21:00:24 (-0800), John Nemeth wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: BSD == NIH
>
>      "small" is not an adjective I would use to describe the SysV
> mess.  There are easily 60+ files that you need to worry about.  Also,
> my complaints don't lie just with the number of files, but with the
> modification methods as well.

And 174 files plus 20 sub-directories in NetBSD (by the time you add a
few packages that need their own files) isn't "big"?  And that's with
only one file in /etc/uucp too....

Of course I've only "worried" about some 75+ of those in my very simple
little test machine since it was installed.  Making that machine into a
fully configured "internet server" would probably require wiggling
another 10 or 20 or so files too.

In comparison there are 309 files and 48 directories on a considerably
more complex and fully operational Solaris 5.6 machine running NNTP (the
closest "real" SysVr4 derivative I have access to these days).  In
contrast though only 25 of those files were modified since installation.

Looks to me that the evidence shows SysV's configuration mess is indeed
somewhat larger than NetBSD's, but that it's considerably simpler too
(if your metric is to count the number of files that must be modified).

Me thinks you worried too much about the stuff that you shouldn't have
been worrying about in SysVr4.  I realize that vendors rarely implement
things the way we personally want, and that they often leave bugs that
really do need fixing, but basic configuration of a SysV machine is
certainly no more difficult than that of any other kind of Unix machine
I've ever encountered.  Whether it does things the way you or I might be
most familiar with, or personally in love with, or whatever, isn't
really relevant.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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