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Date:      Sat, 4 Nov 1995 16:35:25 +0100 (MET)
From:      grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey)
To:        rkw@dataplex.net (Richard Wackerbarth)
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org (FreeBSD Hackers)
Subject:   Re: CD automount and things
Message-ID:  <199511041535.QAA19685@allegro.lemis.de>
In-Reply-To: <v02130508acc131bd8576@[199.183.109.242]> from "Richard Wackerbarth" at Nov 4, 95 09:19:08 am

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Richard Wackerbarth writes:
> 
> At 8:42 AM 11/4/95, Greg Lehey wrote:
> >Still, I've got more important things to worry about.  I just don't
> >like seeing the UNIX world diverge too much, and so I'm a bit more
> >conservative in my approach to this kind of solution.
> 
> So your position is that we should forever carry the burden of poor
> design simply because "they have always ..." and we must remain
> compatable.

Well, it's your interpretation that it's poor design.  In the past,
/etc/rc always asumed that the mounts would succeed.  And as I said,
my position is not very firm.

> I vote for improved design. Who knows, the others might just copy us.
> 
> In the fstab case, I think the "compatability" issue is reasonably
> addressed as long as we recognize and accept the "conventional"
> syntax.

Yes, I suppose so.  Of course, as I said, there's nothing to stop us
from doing both, since they address different concerns.
 
> We can afford a few more bytes in the /etc/rc file to terminate
> the boot with a descriptive message eg. "Restart aborted - Required
> Filesystem Not Ready". That way the user will understand what happened
> and either work around the problem or RTFM and do it "right".

You obviously haven't seen as many lusers as I have.  It would be nice
to think so, though.

> I would also suggest that the distribution fstab include a sample
> entry with the optional flag so that the user who edits the file is
> likely to notice the option even if he fails to RTFM.

Good idea.
Greg



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