Re: Removal of /etc/skel, your opinions please

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, Alexander Leidinger wrote:

Quoting Remko Lodder <remko@xxxxxxxxxxx> (from Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:25:30 +0100 (CET)):

On Thu, November 29, 2007 10:47 am, Alexander Leidinger wrote:
Quoting Remko Lodder <remko@xxxxxxxxxxx> (from Wed, 28 Nov 2007
22:21:06 +0100):

Dear arch@ members,

I would like to remove /etc/skel from the BSD.root.dist mtree file since it is no longer being used and I would like to remove unused items.

Not an objection, just something to think about: Do we want to deprecate the use of "adduser -k /etc/skel"? I know you said you just want to remove the directory, and every admin is allowed to create it again, but by removing the directory from the mtree file, we give a signal into the direction of deprecation.

You do have a point there actually :-), what we can do in the install phase (initially "make distribution", later on when the system is already installed, manage this through "mergemaster") is install all files from /usr/share/skel to /etc/skel and actually use it.

If we dont want to do that, why should we keep on carrying the directory then?

I have a local patch to adduser which adds /usr/local/share/skel (so 2 directories are used by default). Now I think it may be better to change this to use /etc/skel instead, and to do it in a way that /etc/skel overrides /usr/share/skel. Looks more usable to me. What do you think?

Sounds like a quite reasonable argument could be made for having mergemaster install and manage /etc/skel so that when sites customize /etc/skel, mergemaster can be used to manage those customizations over time. Alternatively, mergemaster could manage /usr/share/skel.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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