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From: Markus Baeurle <emw4maba@gp.fht-esslingen.de>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why no addusr?
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 1997 02:03:27 +0100
Organization: FHT Esslingen, Deutschland
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Marco!
In article <x7zpz8wnxt.fsf@dumbcat.codewright.com>
Marco S Hyman <marc@dumbcat.codewright.com> wrote:
> Because ask 25 admins the "best" way to set up users and you will get
> at least 30 answers! Addusr scripts tend to implement policy, and every
> site is almost guaranteed to have policies that differ from that which the
> script implements. Some examples:
>
> where do home directories go?
> what is the initial password for a new user?
> do all users get the same dot files?
> how are mail aliases handled?
>
This answer drives me up the wall, really.
Replies like this make us NetBSD users look like a bunch of snobs. :-(((
This is a bad argument as hardly anything is ideal, but there's still something
provided as standard - and, oh wonder, it often fits the needs of most people.
And, another wonder, people who are not satisfied with it can still look for
something they like better or, much more often, tweak the standard one to fit
their needs.
Why should everybody have to go and get himself an adduser script or even write
his own instead of one being provided as a sufficient solution for most and as
a base for improvement for others?
I repeat: The fact that there is no ideal solution is no argument not to
provide anything. Any solution is better than nothing!
This applies to other things in NetBSD, too.
One large field is documentation. We really need something like the FreeBSD
Handbook.
Taken together, I must say that this all makes NetBSD a rather unfriendly
system for the user.
You have to collect things together from all over the net, you must figure out
so many things yourself unless you want to write tons of messages to this group
or the mailing-lists.
I don't want to blame anybody for that, I just want to state this fact.
And yes, I'm trying to improve this, in the scope of the arm32-port for now.
We have a few documents ready, a good part of which is port-specific, but
others can be used on any port with minor changes.
How about setting up a NetBSD-wide documentation group? Users can help a lot
here, you don't have to be a developer to document most things.
I have also noticed that eg. new manpages have shown up to improve
documentation, but this is not enough IMHO and everybody should ask himself if
he can't help to improve things here.
Btw, our portmaster (Mark Brinicombe) took the time to write some configuration
scripts, among them is an adduser script.
> Besides, it doesn't take an experienced admin much time to build their
> own.
Great, but what about a novice who just wants to add an account for himself on
his home machine?
You don't seriously suggest that everyone should reinvent the wheel, don't you?
Markus