Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

On Tuesday 15 April 2008 01:38:35 Karsten Behrmann wrote:
<snip>
> Hmm, point.
> Maybe an /etc/examples/ or /usr/share/doc/examples/ (bleh) populated
> by us?
> The reason I don't like crunching all the examples into one file is
> that it's a long read.
>
> It doesn't matter as much with files like fstab, in which order is pretty
> much irrelevant and you can just go
> # ===== examples below this line, skip on first read =====
>
> On the other hand, when you're a new user editing his lilo.conf, I'd
> certainly not want to have to delete a bunch of lines to get it to work
> (neccessary with the current lilo.conf.example), and I'd rather not have
> to read through hundreds of lines documenting obscure features until I
> find the line where I put that "append=noapic" that makes my box boot.
>
> So in summary, I think we serve new (or hasty) users better if our default
> files are a small and essential, and all the "reference" stuff is put
> somewhere where you don't need to scroll through just to get your system
> set up.
>
> Just My Humble Opinion, of course.
>
> So Far,
>   Karsten

To me, it's the other way. As a new user (to an OS or to a specific 
application) I prefer well-documented configuration files. I can always 
remove 
the comments later.

For the specific lilo.conf example, just have all the examples commented out 
by 
default. ;)

Either way, as long as all of the examples are available somewhere (I prefer 
*in* the actual config file ;)), and people know/are told where to find them, 
I'll be happy.

-sandalle

-- 
Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us PGP: 0xA8EFDD61  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  http://counter.li.org/  #196285

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