On Mar 20, 12:54am, Greg A. Woods wrote:
} [ On Friday, March 19, 1999 at 21:00:24 (-0800), John Nemeth wrote: ]
} >
} >      "small" is not an adjective I would use to describe the SysV
} > mess.  There are easily 60+ files that you need to worry about.  Also,
} > my complaints don't lie just with the number of files, but with the
} > modification methods as well.
} 
} And 174 files plus 20 sub-directories in NetBSD (by the time you add a

     Where did you find that many files?  I was only talking about the
base OS (in particular stuff having to do with system startup).

} few packages that need their own files) isn't "big"?  And that's with

     Packages don't count, since they aren't part of the OS proper.

} In comparison there are 309 files and 48 directories on a considerably
} more complex and fully operational Solaris 5.6 machine running NNTP (the
} closest "real" SysVr4 derivative I have access to these days).  In
} contrast though only 25 of those files were modified since installation.

     Same question as above, where did you find that many files?  I
took a Solaris 2.5 machine, counted the number of files in /etc/rc2.d,
/etc/default, and added a fudge factor for the stuff that is actually
in /etc.  NNTP isn't part of the OS, so it doesn't count.

} Looks to me that the evidence shows SysV's configuration mess is indeed
} somewhat larger than NetBSD's, but that it's considerably simpler too
} (if your metric is to count the number of files that must be modified).

     Depends on which files you're counting.  I just built a
replacement webserver based on 1.3.3.  The files I modified were:

/etc/aliases
/etc/csh.logout
/etc/daily.conf
/etc/fstab
/etc/ftpd.conf
/etc/hosts
/etc/ifaliases
/etc/ifconfig.ep0
/etc/inetd.conf
/etc/master.passwd
/etc/namedb/*
/etc/newsyslog.conf
/etc/ntp.conf
/etc/passwd
/etc/printcap
/etc/rc.conf
/etc/rc.local
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/sendmail.cf
/etc/shells
/netbsd
/sys/arch/i386/conf/WWW

That's a total of 21 files, and one directory.  Almost all of the
files are ones that would need to be changed regardless of which
version of UNIX was being used.

}-- End of excerpt from Greg A. Woods