On Tuesday 14 October 2008, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 03:08:17PM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote: > > For instance, stating it in the file: Again, not everyone has time > > to read all the comments in all the files. As to unrealistic > > expectations, what would be so hard with using a bash script > > specifying the rewrite was going to happen? It's not that hard. > > Hal, > > I agree that there should be some mechanism to prevent a user from > shooting him/herself in the foot if they make a change to a file > between two markers that remind the user that those changes will be > overwritten on the next kernel upgrade. It shouldn't be necessary, > but since it can prevent the system from booting, and since with raid > and LVM it may not be as simple to fix as it used to be, it would be > a nice touch if something was done.
That's part of my point: It's a MAJOR file. Sure, if CUPS stops working, then it's a major pain and can bring down a business because you can't print anything, but still, it's not as critical as disabling the entire machine. I had another computer to connect to the Internet and research the issue. It's very possible someone could update their only system and end up with no way to research the issue if they didn't have a Knoppix CD or something similar handy. > However, everyone who edits a config file should at least read from > the top of the file down to where they want to edit, at least enough > to read prominent warnings such as are in menu.list. It goes with > the territory of su - ing, sudo-ing, or logging in as root. Yes, and no. That's a wonderful statement and it sounds just fantastic in theory. If I had all the time in the world and didn't have to make a living, then I could take the time to read every man page on every program I read and go through every config file from start to finish and know everything about every program I use. That's just not possible in real life, not for me, and not for a lot of people. If you've ever bought a new digital camera and started using it without reading the directions or picked up any new piece of equipment and hooked it up without going over all the details, then you've done the same thing. Sometimes you can spend hours or, literally, days, searching for information on Google or on mailing lists and finally find a HOWTO on what to do. Before that you may not have known what program or conf file was at the heart of the issue, but then you find a HOWTO that gives you a long explanation on what is going on and tells you just how to fix the problem. Reading all the details sounds find in theory and I truly wish I lived in the kind of fantasy world where I had time to do that. Unfortunately, I have to earn an income and I like to spend a few hours a day doing something besides working with computers and sleeping. There's also another major issue with many man pages and conf files: you can read them through and not be aware of how points mentioned in that file effect other points. If you read menu.lst, it tells you the automagic list can be changed. Okay, if you're new to working with that, then you say, "Okay, I'll just make a note to never run grub-update." Problem solved. Nowhere in the file does it say, "The update-grub script is run whenever a new kernel is installed." > Perhaps > put a line in root's .profile or somewhere that gives you a warning > whenever you become root: > WARNING: YOU HAVE A LOCKED AND LOADED ASSAULT RIFLE POINTED AT > YOUR FEET AND YOUR FINGER IS ON THE TRIGGER. Interesting analogy, but it doesn't work, for several reasons. First, it's quite possible to remove your finger from the trigger, or to just say, "I won't pull the trigger and that solves the whole problem." Honestly, there's a good chance that's what I did. As I've said, this was 2 years ago and I just don't remember it that clearly. If you say I have a gun pointed at my feet and my finger is on the trigger, then I can make a choice: Do I pull the trigger or not? In this case, without warning, apt or aptitude pulls the trigger, WITHOUT WARNING. That's a critical point: The file was overwritten without my knowing or without so much as a warning. The warning in menu.lst says: ## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified ## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below Notice it does NOT say when update-grub is run. It does NOT say, "apt will overwrite this list when the kernel is upgraded." With the warning given, unless someone has a technical understanding of apt, they have no reason to anticipate it overwriting menu.lst. In your analogy, all someone has to do to not shoot themselves in the foot is not pull the trigger. In this situation, with menu.lst, I never planned to pull the trigger. Apt pulled it for me, without warning or consent. That's a MAJOR difference! Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
