From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1QSGfO-0007Bu-2O for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:47:02 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 0BA62E051C; Thu, 2 Jun 2011 22:45:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-fx0-f53.google.com (mail-fx0-f53.google.com [209.85.161.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ADB3BE051C for ; Thu, 2 Jun 2011 22:45:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm8 with SMTP id 8so1294886fxm.40 for ; Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:45:29 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:from:to:subject:date:message-id:user-agent :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding :content-type; bh=kQkB1Uon8Ecjg+GQh3nCnx+iidk564f6C/lNlt8kA+w=; b=pBZcX3DF0IKPsXmOfjYrLUWLLcuEShP40fwOtM2+H3ioA+lKMdjs6fcVdnRZsRHhTF RfwktRsRJjdfIm/pDSLtDRLefE+amSsG/dmp/6S6FB7KpbxzbvNouZVtsKtcT4LpzU7d iq/268FylidOwUZEcyTYXrRuoF8jUMwHSDgf0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:message-id:user-agent:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding:content-type; b=kaVDiSbuWFoRb2UENE2M4Rz6w2l5bR4FJvXkc0/SJHYHQ8THtZSSBCXgNlBs4jJbNt Vs15Dvekl6XLvV6AbSwc7cnvZ40FzB/cnow4GXRPQdnTbdJmzGmU2ijJph+20TWzqVuc zkrx3cBK25M6KnCuCBh5Jk35t+kr5R8Aw/hZQ= Received: by 10.223.53.85 with SMTP id l21mr1416429fag.26.1307054729721; Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:45:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost.localnet (p4FC744D7.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [79.199.68.215]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id b22sm321101fak.1.2011.06.02.15.45.27 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:45:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Volker Armin Hemmann To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Cleaning redundant configuration files Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:45:24 +0200 Message-ID: <1701112.Noo1Wb21fY@localhost> User-Agent: KMail/4.6 rc1 (Linux/2.6.39; KDE/4.6.3; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: <20110601195332.4a04f985@karnak.local> References: <20110601195332.4a04f985@karnak.local> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: b8b75d2892957d9946f0d34dfb5a03b5 On Wednesday 01 June 2011 19:53:32 David W Noon wrote: > On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:20:02 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote about > > Re: [gentoo-user] Cleaning redundant configuration files: > >On Wednesday 01 June 2011 15:57:58 David W Noon wrote: > [snip] > > >> I called it an "annoyance". Having to clean up obsolete > >> configuration files is just that, unless you can offer a better term. > > > >so - what happens when you uninstall a package to cleanly install it > >again? > > > >Happens from time to time - and I seriously would not want to see the > >carefully personalized config file be moved to the big blue electron > >pool in heaven. > > That's easy: if you know you are going to reinstall after deleting, > just take a backup copy of those files you have modified, which is > usually only the one configuration file. After the reinstallation, > restore from your backup. > > Alternatively, you can switch the suggested option to "off", either on > the command line or in /etc/make.conf. > > This is a fairly rare occurrence, and it should be planned -- including > the making of a backup. no, usually something like this happens at 2:30 am without planning because the last -uD world fucked everything up and you have tried all other options in the last hours. And losing your pure-ftpd user database because of a mistype in portage options is a complete nightmare. There is a simple rule in computing: NEVER remove user created data that also applies to config files. There are ways to check if a file is still needed by something in your system. But portage has no business touching something that is not in the same state as it was when it was installed.