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From: veit@mururoa.gmd.de (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: What exactly is the idea behind etcdist?
Message-ID: <1993Apr14.073755.22381@gmd.de>
Sender: veit@mururoa (Holger Veit)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mururoa.gmd.de
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
References: <1993Apr14.024829.17151@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 07:37:55 GMT
Lines: 56
In article <1993Apr14.024829.17151@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, khushro@niagara.eecs.umich.edu (Khushro Shahookar) writes:
|> Can someone please help me make some sense out of etcdist before I wade
|> thru the
|> whole thing?
|>
|> Why are some of teh things already in bindist repeated in etcdist?
|> Are the etcdist tools superior?
The src and bin files mainly come from the Net-2 distribution or were derived
from it. Some files were public domain (see cpio for instance).
Some utilities are missing and were replaced from the existing GNU software.
There are also new packages, such as ghostscript, which are not in the
src.
|> For example what is the difference between /bin/dd and
|> /usr/othersrc/public/fileutils-3.2/bin/dd?
The etc directory holds software from other sources than Net-2. The
file you mention for instance is from the GNU fileutils collection.
|> There is no man page for dd in bindist, but there is one in etcdist.
|> The man pages for ln in bindist and etcdist are different (etcdist man page is
|> twice as long)
The etc utilities may have better documentation and/or added features. This may
be one of the reasons why they were provided in addition. The main reason why
the GNU software (with some exceptions, like the software development tools)
is not used entirely in BSD where possible, is that it should remain possible
to publish binary-only releases (although I doubt that anyone in this circle
will be successful with that). This is prevented by the GNU license
(in particular by the library license).
|> Should I just go ahead and reinstall everything in etcdist regardless of
|> whether
|> it already exists? Should I overwrite the existing tools, or maintain
|> the etcdist
|> version in a separate directory, and forever worry about which one is in
|> the user's path first? (same for different versions of man pages)
Mainly depends on your available disk space.
But if you decide to compile the etc software, make sure to get the latest version.
Many packages in etcdist are pretty outdated.
Holger
|> --
|> Copyright KHUSHRO SHAHOOKAR, $0.02
|> khushro@eecs.umich.edu Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
|>
--
Dr. Holger Veit | INTERNET: Holger.Veit@gmd.de
| | / GMD-SET German National Research | Phone: (+49) 2241 14 2448
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