Re: [gentoo-dev] baselayout redefines /etc/fstab

[John Nilsson]

Would it be wrong for Gentoo to settle for a standardized configuration
file format and implement it in the distro?

I think the current situation is a mess and if we (through patches or
upstream changes) could rely on a single configuration format (xml
mabey) a lot of nice features could be engineered.

1. A standard parser library API for all apps.
2. Same frontend usable for all configurations.
3. A final solution to all config file upgrade problems.

I know that this is a little outside the scope of Gentoo or Portage
development, but the whole point of using OSS is the ability to mess
with the source. I see no reason why Gentoo can not be a leader in
distributon innovations...

-John

On Fri, 2004-02-20 at 12:03, Marius Mauch wrote:
> On 02/07/04  Seemant Kulleen wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 2004-02-07 at 20:06, Steven Elling wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 13:48, purslow@×××××××××.ca wrote:
> > > > recently, i re-emerged 'baselayout',
> > > > which caused a set of candidates to be created for 'etc-update'.
> > > > most were innocuous or easily understood,
> > > > but one was for  /etc/fstab , which seems both dangerous &
> > > > unjustified.
> > >
> > > I agree!
> > >
> > > This has been brought to the attention of the devs already,
> > > discussed at length, debated at length, and eventually ignored as if
> > > it is not a problem.
> >
> > Not so.  It has been discussed and debated, yes, but not ignored.  The
> > only reason for the perceived inaction is really the absence of an
> > acceptable solution.  I'm toying with the notion of creating the .cfg
> > file using the user's installed fstab file so that the diff is against
> > a locally known quantity rather than a blind default quantity.  I'm
> > not sure on the pros and cons and haven't given the thought much air
> > time for discussion yet, so I guess consider this the official
> > throwing out.
>
> Just thinking about this, how about the following procedure:
> - if a config file is installed the first time also let portage make a
> backup to a safe place (say /var/db/pkg/cat/pkg-ver/config)
> - whenever the file is target to be updated make a diff against the
> original config file, replace the backup with the to-be-installed file
> and use the diff to create the .cfg* file.
> - Optionally ignore comments/cvs headers in the diff
>
> Maybe that's what you meant, just formalizing it a bit more ;)
>
> Marius