On 11 Mar, David Brownlee wrote:

> 	Hey - its also for people who have used NetBSD for years and
> 	prefer the ability to run '/etc/rc.d/ipfilter restart' rather than
> 	remember the exact rc.conf settings on each machine. Its quicker,
> 	and less error prone. 
And that is exactly the reason why I tolerate? accept? like?! the rc.d
stuff. It is very nice if you can say '/etc/rc.d/service restart' if a
restart need more then a 'kill -HUP `cat /var/run/service.pid`'. 

It may not be "The (traditional) BSD Way", but it is a rationally
solution. It may look like SysV, OK! If you ask me what "The BSD Way"
is, I would say one big part is: "If there is somthing out there in the
Unix land that is good, get it and integrate it into the system." Have a
look at the system and locate all the good and sane solutions that don't
originate from a *BSD or the CSRG like e.g. nsswitch.conf. Even the old
VM system, one of _the_ central parts of the kernel, was not implemented
at the CSRG. It came from MACH at the time of 4.3BSD-Reno. 

And one word to the tradition: BSD UNIX and the CSRG are relegated to
history. To say "It has to be done that way because it was allways done
that way." is the worst possible answer. Period.
Live goes on and live means change. If nothing changes it is dead. 
I don't wane be dead. 
The CSRG (and BSD UNIX) are dead. But there are now {Free,Net,Open}BSD.
They originate in BSD UNIX done by the CSRG and its contributors. The
*BSD systems carry on what was done at UCB. But BSD UNIX and and "The
BSD Way" are no religon. There are no unchangable dogmas*.

* Dogmas like the not pkged base system. I don't feel happy when I think
of a pkged base system. I have only one reasonible, techinicaly argument
against it. It is not acceptapble to have the dist sets of the base
system in some .pkg, .rpm, whatever file format. If the base system is
pkged and there are tar balls, I will go with it. But I will complain
very loud if I ever need more than sh, disklabel, (installboot,) newfs,
mount, ifconfig, route, tar/pax, perhaps ftp, cp, mv, ls, vi, ??? to
install a machine. 
So if the base system gets pkged and there is no special install
programm needed to get it on a disk, I will go with it. 

Just my 0,01 Euro.
-- 



tschüß,
         Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/