Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 15:23:22 -0500 From: Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com> To: Steve Mazerski <smazerski@yahoo.co.jp> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "Base system" applications, files (newby-ish questions) Message-ID: <20020519202322.GA25559@dan.emsphone.com> In-Reply-To: <200205192056.21163.smazerski@yahoo.co.jp> References: <200205192056.21163.smazerski@yahoo.co.jp>
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In the last episode (May 19), Steve Mazerski said: > In the meantime I have a couple of questions. Apologies if they are > newby-ish, but I haven't found any answers anywhere else: > > 1. "Base system" applications > > not quite sure what the technical term is, but FreeBSD installs a > certain number of applications as part of the basic installation. Is > there any way of generating an overview (a la pkg_info) of which > applications / versions thereof are installed? For the most part, you can assume the version of all the binaries is "4.5", or whatever version of BSD you just installed. The base system is pretty much treated as a single unit. Exceptions are programs that are actively maintained outside of FreeBSD: gcc, ntpd, ssh, etc. The release engineers try not to upgrade these, preferring to merge in only security fixes. Makes it easier to people to upgrade without having to redo all their config files. The easiest way to find out versions for those programs is to check /usr/src/contrib, or run "program -v" for each program. > 2. Removing same > > There are certain situations when I, in my capacity as omniescent > quasi deity and system administrator decide in my infinite wisdom > that certain vital applications have to be replaced. This occurs from > time to time with OpenSSH :-(. Now, I can download and install a > current version with pkg_add, which does of course not replace the > original version, and ensure that the new version is run (by setting > the sshd_variable in /etc/rc.conf??). However the original files are > still there, pricking my paranoid conscience. Is there any "elegant" > way of deinstalling these files apart from tracking them down by > hand? Not really. > 3. .cshrc and .profile in / > > Is there any reason for these files to be in the root directory? I don't think so. roots homedir is /root. Maybe it's for the extremely rare case where someone su's to a non-interactive uid like news, kmem, or bind. > 4. Duplicated command files > > I notice in several places identical commands, e.g. /bin/ln , /bin/link > or /bin/[ , /bin/test exist as identical duplicate files. Is there any reason > for this, or for not implementing the duplicates as links? ln, link, [, and test are hardlinks on my system. I don't know why yours aren't. Maybe you manually copied them at some point? -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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