Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 08:16:03 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: current@freebsd.org Cc: hans@brandinnovators.com Subject: Heads up and and a call for a show of hands. Message-ID: <1011.868634163@time.cdrom.com>
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I've just committed some patches from Hans Zuidam to ldconfig and /etc/rc (in 3.0-current) which allow: 1. ldconfig to accept filenames as well as directory pathnames on the command line, in the file case it being assumed that the file contains directory pathnames (with the usual #'d comment support). 2. An /etc/ld.so.conf file which overrides our current "peek around and add" ldconfig path code in rc - if you have an /etc/ld.so.conf file, it's assumed to contain all the ldconfig path info. Now this is generally a good thing from the vendor's standpoint (and it was, in fact, Xi Graphics, Inc. who first requested it) since they don't have to messily edit the /etc/rc file, they can just tack their own lib paths onto the end of /etc/ld.so.conf. The question which is now raised in my mind, however, is a simple one: Should /etc/ld.so.conf be an _override_ or an _add on_ to the "detected" ldconfig path list? Making it an override is certainly the more flexible of the two options since you could conceivably use it to avoid /usr/lib altogether and set the system up to use your custom library locations. On the other hand, making it an override also means that the minute you "buy in" to /etc/ld.so.conf, you have to buy in all the way. An automated installation can't simply create ld.so.conf and start appending custom paths to it, it has to first detect that it's not there on a user's system and populate it with a sensible initial path, the most up-to-date value for "sensible" being pretty much whatever's auto-detected by default in the no-etc-ld.so.conf clause of /etc/rc. That fact tends to suggest that you'd also sort of like to keep the bit of rc which currently builds up _LDC and just selectively add /etc/ld.so.conf to the _end_ of this list for the localizations. This would also put the file far more our of the critical path and make its introduction less of a shock (at the cost, of course, of being able to use it for overriding anything). What do folks here think? Right now the behavior is "override", but since we're not using it yet, it's still a reasonable time to change that if necessary. :-) Jordan
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