X configuration paradigm, and a proposal

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le lundi 08 novembre 2004 à 13:21 +0100, Diego Calleja a écrit :
> El Sun, 07 Nov 2004 17:23:43 -0800 xorg-owner at freedesktop.org escribió:
> El Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:03:44 -0300 Avi Alkalay <avibrazil at gmail.com> escribió:
> 
> > The proposal is to upgrade the way X handles configuration (human
> > readable xorg.conf) to some hierarchy of configuration atoms
> > represented by key-value pairs. Something similar to GConf, but not
> > GConf because this one is not available when X needs to read its
> > configurations.
> 
> IMHO making "human readable configuration" is wrong and misguided - users
> should _never_ touch configuration files.

But shit happens and "human readable configuration" means the system is
somehow salvageable without a full reinstall.

> In fact, in my opinion this is how it should be done: no configuration
> file needed, _always_ detect everything at runtime.

Doesn't work for things like preferred resolution, etc.

FC current devel printer config autodetects my printer. In fact each
time I shut it down it thinks there's a new printer and autodetects
everything anew.

Now since I hate the default dpi it chooses (and people use A4 not
letter in Europe) I did my own setup manually. At least my manual
printer does not have to be reconfigured every time I start it up. I
dread the day the autodetect stuff will be smart enough to recognize
they are the same printer and will erase my settings with its stuff.

So autodetect all you like but
1. leave some space for human overrides ie human-readable conf files
(which includes xml as long as you indent it properly and do not fill it
with numeric keys/ids/references)
2. *remember* human preferences ie don't drop theme every time the damn
devices are powered down/plugged off.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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