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Date:      Sat, 22 Jun 1996 15:06:53 -0700 (MST)
From:      Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
To:        alk@Think.COM (Tony Kimball)
Cc:        hackers@freefall.freebsd.org, phk@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/etc/mtree BSD.usr.dist
Message-ID:  <199606222206.PAA22895@phaeton.artisoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <199606222151.QAA02311@compound.Think.COM> from "Tony Kimball" at Jun 22, 96 04:51:54 pm

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> Man pages are another component which I do not deem to be part of the
> base OS.  One can install FreeBSD just dandy without man pages.

I gotta agree with this; I'd like to see the label-based CDROM
approach to man pages -- just like Microsoft's "Books Online"
for their devsys.  If you have the ROM in, you get the man pages
(as an optional install).

> (There is one problem: makewhatis is run by cron whether the man
> component is installed or not.  That should be fixed, as it is
> trivial.)

All the makefiles should be fixed, especially the libkvm dependencies.

> Games is another.

Definitely.  Do the CDROM thing there, too.  8-).

> DES is another.

This is questionable because of DES availability.  Certainly, it is not
installed by default unless you ask for it.

> Perl does not belong in the BIN distribution.  Perl is properly part
> of an administrative tools and scripting add-on just as optional as
> man pages.

I'd go further; /bin/sh is evil, as are any other scripting systems
where it's possible to have the data embedded in the script instead
of operated on by a tool.  The only reason I don't call for its
removal is that the installation and the system startup (incorrectly)
depend on it, and /bin/csh is more evil.  As the default system shell,
it has to be there, but that makes it no less annoying.  Look at
the /etc/rc* mess that /bin/sh has gotten us into because it was
more convenient than Doing Things The Right Way.  8-(.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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