This is a continuation of the discussion beginning here: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20255#44>.
To sum up: I would like to have a possibility to use my own /etc/profile instead of the default one, but Ludovic doesn't want to provide me this freedom :-( Ludovic Courtès (2015-11-23 17:31 +0300) wrote: > Alex Kost <alez...@gmail.com> skribis: > >> Ludovic Courtès (2015-11-23 02:04 +0300) wrote: >> >>> Alex Kost <alez...@gmail.com> skribis: [...] >>>> … what I suggest now is just to give an option to avoid generating the >>>> default /etc/profile. What about making an 'operating-system' field for >>>> this file (similar to 'sudoers-file' or 'hosts-file')? So when such >>>> 'profile-file' is specified, it will be used instead of the default one >>>> (of course, it should be mentioned in the manual that it's only for >>>> those users who are sure what they do). >>> >>> I think we could make an /etc/profile-service that receives snippets >>> meant to be glued together into the final /etc/profile. Users could >>> specify the top or bottom of the file. >>> >>> There could be a combined-search-paths-service that implements the >>> solution I proposed here. >>> >>> WDYT? >> >> I agree, the more ways to change a default behaviour, the better. >> Although I will not use these things if there will be ‘profile-file’ >> field that allows to specify my own "/etc/profile". > > [...] > >> Great! So is it OK to send a patch for adding ‘profile-file’ field? > > Hmm, I’m not sure if we want to give direct access to /etc/profile like > this. Oh, no! If there is one person (me) who wants to have a full control on his /etc/profile, there may be the others with the same wish. > The problem is that several things in there are here to make the system > work, and to to make it conform to the ‘operating-system’ declaration, > such as: > > > export LANG="en_US.utf8" > export TZ="Europe/Paris" > export > TZDIR="/gnu/store/rwvf6xqgsyb8bmpi7rwk9fildnwvzrv5-tzdata-2015c/share/zoneinfo" > > # Tell 'modprobe' & co. where to look for modules. > export LINUX_MODULE_DIRECTORY=/run/booted-system/kernel/lib/modules Yes, that's why I suggest to add a note to the manual about a danger of using this field. > The risk I see with adding a raw ‘profile-file’ option is that newcomers > may end up getting rid of such things without really noticing, and then > getting a broken system. But a newcomer will learn about this option only if (s)he reads the manual with the warning I've mentioned. For me, your phrase sounds like: «We will not provide "rm" command, because a newcomer may accidentally run "rm -rf ~"». Please give me an opportunity to shoot myself in the foot! Besides will the system really be broken? What do you mean? Even if /etc/profile is empty, the system will boot successfully and a user could login, no? > What about instead giving a way to populate the top and/or bottom of > this file? Controversial parts, if any, could still be turned on and > off by adding or removing services that add these lines? It is better than nothing, but it is not sufficient IMO. Any part of /etc/profile can be controversial (you'll never know what a user would like to change), so I think providing an option to change this file completely is essential. But I agree that appending/prepending some lines may also be useful for those who like to keep the default /etc/profile and who just want to add something to it. > I think we should open a separate bug report to discuss this. I agree that it's not related to this bug, so I'm sending this message to guix-devel list. -- Alex
