That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 12, 2008 23:55 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (guest, #24648)
Parent article: Udev rules and the management of the plumbing layer

Having a Linux user be told that it's "my way or the highway" kind of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with. A lot of Linux users enjoy customizing, adjusting, and "tweaking" their installation configuration--including the /dev directory (and the associated udev(7) settings)--in pursuit of a more optimized and streamlined server/workstation/embedded device/other.

Allowing users only one way of doing things and dissuading them from any alternative is soooooo Microsoft. And Apple.

I can certainly speak for the attitudes of myself and a few other friends/colleagues/local LUG members on this matter.

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That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 0:46 UTC (Wed) by PaulWay (guest, #45600) [Link] (4 responses)

I think you're missing the aim of this proposal.  Think of it as parallel to the Linux
Standard Base - a set of rules that is reasonably comprehensive and comprehensible between
distros.  That way a Debian sysadmin can look at a SuSE machine and still know their way
around the udev rules, without throwing up their hands and saying "I don't know, Debian does
it differently to everyone else".  Additions, deletions and modifications to that set of rules
won't surprise anyone if they're done in a way that's consistent across all distributions.

In other words, no-one's saying "you must have rules for the Foomeister 3000 video card on
your system", they're saying "rules for video cards will look like this and be stored here".

Frankly, a Debian developer saying "no, the entire rest of the community must conform to my
ways" is a bit disappointing but doesn't surprise me either.  You'd think the OpenSSH debacle
would have taught them a bit of hubris...

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 6:30 UTC (Wed) by PaulWay (guest, #45600) [Link]

Or, to correct myself, humility.  I think they probably have enough hubris... :-)

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 14:57 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] (2 responses)

> Frankly, a Debian developer saying "no, the entire rest of the community must conform to my
ways" is a bit disappointing but doesn't surprise me either.  You'd think the OpenSSH debacle
would have taught them a bit of hubris...

I think that's a bit too sweeping generalization. Marco is only speaking as himself, you
should not make the assumption that that's the way the whole Debian community thinks/acts.
Since the openssl debacle there is now a large group in Debian that believes any divergence
from upstream is _bad_. But since we are talking about a very large group pf people, suprise
suprise, there is a large range of opinions and attitudes. In future please don't label a huge
group on one members actions. Or atleast reserve that for /. - lets keep lwn.net at a bit
higher quality discussion.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 14, 2008 12:48 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> I think that's a bit too sweeping generalization. Marco is only speaking as himself, you should not make the assumption that that's the way the whole Debian community thinks/acts.

Maybe not, but without a large number of developers either telling Marco he's got this one wrong or telling everyone else that Marco's attitude doesn't reflect Debian's overall position - or ultimately replacing Marco if he won't play ball - the Debian community is granting Marco a degree of implicit approval.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 14, 2008 16:36 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

At the macro scale, I'm afraid the situations are quite a bit more similar than you realize.
Both involve Debian developers believing that their way is more "elegant" (an awfully
subjective term) and patching upstream with little regard for the chance that upstream
understands the code quite a bit better than they do, and little motivation to push those
changes back upstream.

If it was for additional functionality, then I could understand.  But elegance??  What an
awful reason to diverge!

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 1:14 UTC (Wed) by pynm0001 (guest, #18379) [Link] (1 responses)

> Having a Linux user be told that it's "my way or the highway" kind of
> defies the allure of running Linux to begin with.

a) The Linux user is not being told to do squat, it was a call for support
from distributions.

b) As mentioned in the article there is already a mechanism in udev for
local changes.  What's being requested is that the default provided by the
different distributions are consistent.

It is easier for the user to do what he wants when he needs to make the
same set of changes between distros he uses instead of having to have
distribution-specific changes to achieve his goal.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 22, 2008 0:32 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]

If it works, I don't care. If it doesn't, and hardware integration is one
area where it sometimes doesn't, I want something easy to hack.

I suppose if everyone uses the same setup, bugs will be fixed, and eventually
I won't have any need to know where the configuration files are.

I hope.

Derek

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 8:21 UTC (Wed) by walters (subscriber, #7396) [Link] (4 responses)

Out of curiosity, have you ever *really* spent time optimizing your udev rules?

Spent time optimizing udev rules

Posted Aug 13, 2008 15:06 UTC (Wed) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

Out of curiosity, have you ever *really* spent time optimizing your udev rules?

As a matter of fact, I have hacked some of the *.rules files in the rules.d udev directory in order to eliminate extraneous/unneeded symlinks in /dev. But, after re-reading the article and gathering others' thoughts from their comments, I'm unsure now whether this "optimizing" is related to the article's point.

As for elanthis's comment below: chill out, dude! I didn't mean to strike a nerve. While I stand firm with my assertion that end-user choice was/is amongst my reasons for using Linux, I will concede that my original comment was short-sighted and reactionary. I blame my thoughts about lack-of-choice on leftover resentments over the Jörg Schilling/Cdrtools debacle. I'm sorry for projecting that frustration on the udev developers.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 16:12 UTC (Wed) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

Doesn't everybody? On any computer with more than one network interface, I use custom udev
rules to give each one a explanatory name ("inside" and "outside" for firewalls, "wireless"
and "wired" for my laptop, etc; the default rules make the names persistent, but you still
have to remember which is which). I've also used rules to do different things with different
USB devices that would otherwise all be undifferentiated CDC-ACM devices.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 13, 2008 22:21 UTC (Wed) by kruemelmo (guest, #8279) [Link]

I tried to create a working automatic /dev/tape symlink on debian etch. For an hour or so. I
was unsuccessful although I followed the manual. After reading this article, I suspect the
optimized debian rules are the cause which spots that the rules may be more elegant, but the
documentation for them was not findable.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 18, 2008 23:00 UTC (Mon) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]

Not optimising, but I have had to fix the occasional bug when it failed to detect a filesystem
or something.

You sort of defy common sense and logic

Posted Aug 13, 2008 14:23 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

Change your udev rules all you want.  Nobody cares.

The proposal had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with taking away "choice" (ugh, that word
is like poison now thanks to people like you).  It's about distributions shipping a standard
set of rules that comes with the udev package so that you, the user, can exercise your
"choice" and install third-party packages that rely on udev without yourself having to
manually integrate said package's rules into some arbitrary set of unknown udev rules shipped
by your distribution.

This proposal makes it EASIER for a user like you to customize your distribution by making it
easier to install and change software.

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 14, 2008 12:32 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] (1 responses)

Jesus.

Firstly, please read Linux is not about choice.

Secondly, how does everyone having a common basis for udev rules eliminate the ability to tweak them? They're configuration files in /etc. The defaults will be changed, but you can still edit them.

Thirdly, read 'Linux is not about choice' again.

(Lastly, hell, even if nothing in this mail was true, you could fork udev now, or choose not to run it, or whatever. The source is all there. Use it.)

That sort of defies the allure of running Linux to begin with

Posted Aug 14, 2008 22:20 UTC (Thu) by deleteme (guest, #49633) [Link]

Actually one of the things mentioned is moving the files to /lib/ because you shouldn't tweak
them, just "edit them as a whole"....