On Fri, 2012-06-01 at 11:56 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
On Fri, 2012-06-01 at 14:46 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
> IMHO *telling* the user how to manage /tmp is wrong, whichever side of
> the argument you're on. *Asking* them how to manage it is the right
> way. That was my point in that mail.
>
> *I* want /tmp on disk. I still don't want someone else telling me I
> have to do it that way.
You are entirely free to configure it through /etc/fstab. But to say
that 'the system' should ask 'the user' to make every major config
choice for it is just untenable and absurd.
Ok, say I have installed my new laptop and discover that the new /tmp
arrangement is not good for me and I'd rather keep /tmp on disk, how do
you go about that ? (No I do not have any un-partitioned space left, and
using the root file system is fine by me)
Yes, it's 'just' another checkbox in the installer. Feel
free to join
#anaconda and see how easy it is to keep track of the seventy zillion
checkboxes (i.e. codepaths) we currently have in the installer when
trying to redesign it in a way that makes any goddamn sense.
I think the question here is can someone please point to a page with
numbers that justify /tmp -> tmpfs be the default for the most common
cases ?
laptop / vm with limited RAM.
Philosophically: the whole _job_ of a distribution is to make
choices
for 'the user'. That's what we do. We look at the bewildering array of
choices you can make in deploying a bunch of bits to a system in order
to be able to actually use it, and make lots of those choices, so that
people can go ahead and stick a disc in a drive and click a few buttons
and get a working system, instead of spending three weeks researching
what a tmpfs even _is_.
Absolutely correct, but there should be some good rationale when a
change impact decades of use and habit and has the potential of breaking
stuff.
Let's make some logical extensions of your position. When I
start
installing Fedora, it should ask me whether I want to install grub,
grub2, or lilo. Then ask me what framebuffer mode and console font I'd
like to use. Then it should probably ask me whether to use udev or a
static /dev tree. Then it could maybe ask what system initialization
daemon it should use, systemd or upstart. Then ask whether we want to
use dpkg or rpm, and access a different repository accordingly. Then we
could get into the real meaty stuff, like do I want ash or bash. Do I
want chronyd or ntpd.
It's just freaking absurd. Our job is to deploy a cohesive system - i.e.
to make choices about basic system design. Not to create a giant
choose-your-own-adventure interface to encapsulate all the possible
options of system configuration policy.
I totally agree here, we do not want to have this kind of choices, but
we want *safe* defaults.
The current /tmp setup is reasonably safe and fast enough for current
needs, the transition to tmpfs has the potential of breaking a lot of
stuff, so what is so good in tmpfs to warrant this big change ?
Where are the numbers ?
Simo.
--
Simo Sorce * Red Hat, Inc * New York