[5974] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Making duplex via LPROPT the default for new accounts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Tue May 6 13:18:16 2008
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
To: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@mit.edu>
Cc: release-team@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <30345AD4-8B1B-49AE-8711-B7C4B02DEEFC@mit.edu>
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Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 13:17:36 -0400
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I have a more general design idea, which is to keep track of dotfile
generations via a new dotfile, and then have the central dotfiles choose
defaults based on that value. I will discuss this at the release team
meeting tomorrow and try to resolve it then.
On Tue, 2008-05-06 at 11:07 -0400, Jonathan Reed wrote:
> *dropping owls from CC*
>
> Revisiting this, I still like the idea of doing this
> through .environment. However, in order to kill two birds with one
> stone, I have also written a "fix-dotfiles" script, which I expect to
> reside in the consult locker. This has the added benefit that it's
> easier to say "athrun consult fix-dotfiles" over the phone than "cp /
> usr/prototype_user/..?* $HOME". Both the script, and the
> new .environment file are in /mit/jdreed/Public/dotfiles for review.
>
> Currently, the script backs up all the user's dotfiles and copies over
> the default. I went back and forth about whether that was the correct
> operation, as opposed to merely copying the Athena defaults and
> preserving the user-customizable files, however I find the most common
> failure mode is "I can't log in", in which case it's easiest to punt
> all the dotfiles and then help the user figure out later which one was
> broken. I am, however, open to being convinced that this is incorrect.
>
> What do people think? If we can come to a resolution by the
> beginning of next week, that would be best, since the new folks can
> register for their accounts soon.
>
> -Jon
>
> On Apr 16, 2008, at 2:45 PM, Jonathan Reed wrote:
>
> > It's equally easy for us to create a stock answer for "How do I make
> > single-sided printing the default?", so it doesn't really matter to
> > me which method we choose. If there's a chance of people's
> > customizations getting clobbered, than we can punt my suggestion.
> >
> > -Jon
> >
> > On Apr 16, 2008, at 2:38 PM, Camilla R Fox wrote:
> >>
> >> It may be Jon's standard practice, but it's never been mine; in the
> >> simple case that presents like "add isn't in my path" I prefer a
> >> solution that's idempotent and simple, over one that preserves data
> >> at
> >> all costs.
> >>
> >> But, the backups have only gotten easier to access over the years,
> >> so I
> >> think it's still an acceptable risk.
> >>
> >> -Camilla
> >
>
