Re: Make etcupdate bootstrap requirement due to previous mergemaster usage more clear in handbook

On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 13:58:39 +0100, Miroslav Lachman <000.fbsd@quip.cz> wrote:

> On 03/12/2021 12:52, Yetoo Happy wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> >  Quick Start* and follow the instructions and get to step
> > 7 and may think that even though etcupdate is different from mergemaster
> > from the last time they used the handbook they have faith that following
> > the instructions won't brick their system. This user will instead find that
> > faith in general is just a very complex facade for the pain and suffering
> > of not following *24.5.6.1 Merging Configuration Files* because the user
> > doesn't know that step exists or relevant to the current step and ends up
> > unknowingly having etcupdate append "<<<< yours ... >>>>> new" to the top
> > of the user's very important configuration files that they didn't expect
> > the program to actually modify that way when they resolved differences nor
> > could they predict easily because the diff format is so unintuitive and
> > different from mergemaster. Now unable to login or boot into single user
> > mode because redirections instead of the actual configuration is parsed the
> > user goes to the handbook to find out what might have happened and scrolls
> > down to find *24.5.6.1 Merging Configuration Files* is under *24.5.6.
> 
> [...]
> 
> That's why I think etcupdate is not so intuitive as tool like this 
> should be and etcupdate is extremely dangerous because it intentionally 
> breaks syntax of files vital to have system up and running.
> If anything goes wrong with mergemaster automatic process then your have 
> configuration not updated which is almost always fine to boot the system 
> and fix it. But after etcupdate? Much worse...
> 
> I maintain about 30 machines for 2 decades and had problems with 
> etcupdate many times. I had ti use mergemaster as fall back many times. 
> Mainly because of etcupdate said "Reference tree to diff against 
> unavailable" or "No previous tree to compare against, a sane comparison 
> is not possible.". And sometimes because etcupdate cannot automatically 
> update many files in /etc/rc.d and manual merging of a lot of files with 
> "<<<< ==== >>>>" is realy painful while with mergemaster only simple 
> keyboard shortcuts will solve it.
> All of this must be very stressful for beginners.
> 
> So beside the update of documentation I really would like to see some 
> changes to etcupdate workflow where files are modified in temporary 
> location and moved to destination only if they do not contain any syntax 
> breaking changes like <<<<, ====, >>>>.
> 
> Kind regards
> Miroslav Lachman


Agree. I fell back to mergemaster this Nov on 13-stable when the /var files
pertaining to etcupdate were all missing current /etc data, and no study of
man etcupdate was clear enough to rectify such a scenario, and suspect my
initial use of etcupdate will or may require a planned reinstall,  not having
had to do so since Jan 2004 iirc,  [ vs failed hard disk migrations ] and 
I am just hoping mergemaster stays in /usr/src and updated 
for system changes, even if moved to 'tools' or
something, since its use seems intuitive and much less of a black box. 
Also, /usr/src/UPDATING still at the bottom emphasizes mergemaster still.