Re: [gentoo-user] How to work with etc-updates.

[Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl>]

Jerry Turba schreef:
> As I understand the process etc-update lists new configuration files
> provided by the program authors. I have tried to define some rules for
> myself to determine how to handle these new files.
> 
> 1. If I made a change to a file I will never allow the new config file
> to overwrite the old file.

I disagree. Certainly there are some 'new' config files that you should
never, ever allow etc-update to overwrite, such as /etc/fstab. However,
if the format of the config file has been changed in the meantime, some
of the settings in the old config file may be invalid, and new, valid
default settings (for areas that you have not changed) will not be added.

This is what the '3' option is for, after the changes have been
displayed: 'Interactively merge update with original'.

I use this in those cases to preserve those settings that I want to
keep, while upgrading the config header, comments, and other settings to
the new defaults.

In those very rare cases where the line ordering has changed so much
that the diff utility would overwrite one or more settings, I accept the
new file, and immediately edit it with nano to change the (usually) one
or two lines that were 'wrongly' diff-ed.

> 
> 2. If the new config file is a new default file I will accept the new file.

Agreed.

> 
> 3. I will never change a file that is program code, (I am not a
> programmer).

Agreed.
> 
> I have tried dispatch-conf but I
> still have to make the same decisions. Am I missing something?

Not really; that would be Gentoo. Decision is not meant to be taken out
of your hands. But the power to choose how your system is configured
carries the responsibility to pay attention to the offered changes and
think about their effects (which means you have to know what their
effects are going to be, which means you have to learn wtf is going on
on your system in the first place).

Holly
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