Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Casey Harkins <charkins AT upl.cs.wisc.edu>]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Jack Bertram wrote:
>
> If this change goes through, then I won't be able to take the risk
> of upgrading my system - I've had it broken by too many things before
> to do so.  So I'll end up becoming more and more incompatible with
> the default SMGL install, until I finally give up and reinstall.
>

I too have been bitten a few times and considered switching myself.
However, I only see things getting better and hopefully the frequency of
these kinds of changes will decrease with time.

I do feel however, that they've covered backwards compatability enough
that it shouldn't be a problem for anyone. I'll admit now that I've not
read each message in this thread intently, but from what I gather:

1) You will not be forced to use devfs over /dev, this is the point of
adding the /etc/sysconfig/devices file. The only major change that will
occur if you opt not to use devfs over devices, is you'll get an updated
mount.sh script and a line will be added to /etc/sysconfig/devices
pointing to /devices.

2) If you do use devfs over /dev, a symlink will be created from /devices
to /dev to eleviate any straggling config files that are still pointing to
/devices.

Another nice side effect of these changes is that choosing the option for
the kernel to automount devfs will not be a "trap" for new users as the
mount.sh init.d script will only mount it if it hasn't been mounted
already.

My 1/2 cent. I hope you'll consider trying the update before you
re-install!

-casey