Re: What should go in dot files

[Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 07:58:30PM +0200, Alistair Crooks wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 09:21:57PM +0900, Izumi Tsutsui wrote:
> > > Now that the earth-shattering issue of aliases has been solved, I'd really
> > > like to hear your arguments as to what and why should go in the dot files
> > > under /etc/skel. Why are no aliases allowed but BLOCKSIZE is?
> > 
> > Again, no BLOCKSIZE in skel files. I have no idea about it.
> > If you want to remove BLOCKSIZE from files in src/etc/root/,
> > you should ask it to admin users in a separate thread.
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with this.  Having 512-byte "blocks" displayed
> for (primarily) du(1) and df(1) has always struck me as
> counter-intuitive, a unit of 1KiB is much, much easier for people to
> parse, understand, and use - and the POLA applies here in a big way. 
> This thread is talking about new users.  Please don't condemn them to
> 512-byte trash.

What you said.  BLOCKSIZE = 1024 should stay.
If BLOCKSIZE is not set, doesn't POSIX require 512-byte blocks?  And,
conversely, then, if 512-byte blocks are not the default, are we not
then required to expose BLOCKSIZE in the environment?

> Another touchy subject for me.  pkgsrc has no business landing files
> or directories or other symbolic links in directory trees which can be
> viewed as "system".  The same goes for /bin, /sbin, and /usr/{s,}bin

What you said.  As you know this is a longstanding gripe of mine -- but
I have been happy to see I have not needed to gripe about it for some time.

Thor