From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Sep 10 15:51:36 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA03995 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 15:51:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.19]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA03985 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 15:51:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gurney.reilly.home (d5.syd2.zeta.org.au [203.26.11.5]) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id IAA12571; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:46:09 +1000 Received: (from andrew@localhost) by gurney.reilly.home (8.8.7/8.8.5) id IAA02091; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:44:30 +1000 (EST) From: Andrew Reilly Message-Id: <199709102244.IAA02091@gurney.reilly.home> Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:44:29 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: My FreeBSD Wish List... To: kpneal@pobox.com cc: dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19970910054020.00cc13ec@mail.mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On 10 Sep, Kevin P. Neal wrote: > At 02:30 PM 9/10/97 +1000, David Dawes wrote: >>On a partly related note, a future XFree86 release will put config files >>(like xdm config files for example) in a directory hierarchy below /var >>(most likely /var/X11). It is possible that future X11 releases from The >>Open Group will do this too. This will make it easier to use a read-only >>/usr/X11R6. None of this has been set in stone yet, so if anyone has >>any comments about this, please let me know. > > Wouldn't it be better to put them below, say, /etc/X11? With logging going > to /var/log/X11/* or something? Depends on whether X is to be a "part of the system" (plausible) or a package on its own. I vote for /etc/X11 and /var/log/X11 for the former, and something like /usr/X11R6/{etc,var,...} for the latter. If people want their log files to go to a different partition, then they can symlink them to /var/log/X11 if they like. > I personally am bothered by config files in /var. I was under the impression > that /etc was the proper location of config files. I agree. I generally consider var to be a place that would not affect the world too badly if it became corrupted. The sort of place you could mount asynch, and only back up weekly. Obviously there are a few exceptions to that being workable policy, but that's the sort of "spool" idea. >>From NetBSD's hier manpage (the FreeBSD box in the apt is in the room of a > sleeping person, so...): > > /etc system configuration files and scripts > > /var multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files. /etc is definitely the place for configuration files for "system" things. I am quite used to /usr/local/etc for configuration files for things added to the "system". Which of these XFree86 falls into is probably the core of the argument. -- Andrew "The steady state of disks is full." -- Ken Thompson