On 11/22/2014 at 03:44 AM, Philip Hands wrote: > Hi Simon, > > Thanks for the explanation -- all makes a lot more sense now. > > I'm much less tempted to rant about how large chunks of /lib should > be moved to /etc (which is very good, because I don't suppose I'd be > the first to suggest it ;-) ) > > Simon McVittie <s...@debian.org> writes: > >> On 21/11/14 17:07, Philip Hands wrote: >>> Is there any way this isn't going to be an enormous surprise to >>> people that are used to the way that Debian usually treats /etc? >> >> I do get your point; editing the (underlying file for the) .service >> is unnecessary and undesirable for systemd, and if you blindly do >> "vi /etc/.../thing.service" and don't realise you're following a >> symlink, that would be a bad idea. > > Given that, it occurs to me that it might be wise to make these files > in /lib read-only. > > If, when attempting to save the .service file, I'd been presented > with a warning about it being read-only I think it would have been > enough of a nudge to make me look a bit more closely at what was > going on with the files (or not) under /etc.
It wouldn't have been enough for me; I would have just tried again as root, on the assumption that it was a simple user-permissions issue, and that would have succeeded since of course root can write data to a-w files. That's assuming I hadn't been trying the edit as root to begin with - which is more likely in any case, since I know quite well that most files under /etc aren't ordinary-user-writable. > Even if it didn't actually save the stumbling user from falling over, > at least when they start shouting about it the bugs can be closed > with "Well, we did try to stop you, but you ignored the read-only > safety catch, and shot your foot anyway". That sounds like an unfriendly approach, to say the least. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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