[fhs-discuss] FHS/LSB Updates

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Bruce,

Bruce Dubbs wrote on Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 12:51:01PM -0600:

> The last I looked, LSB Core required several programs that seem to
> me to be obsolete:  'cpio', 'ed', 'at', and 'batch' come to mind.
> I have not seen those in active use in the last 10 years or so.

What, obsolete?

 - at(1) and batch(1) are POSIX and not marked obsolete.
   I use them daily at work, and we ship them, enabled,
   to tens of thousands of customer machines on SLES 11.

 - While i'm not sure whether there is a standard for cpio(1)
   except the LSB, i consider a tool people have get used to.
   I use at about monthly, most often in conjunction with
   rpm2cpio(1).

 - While ed(1) is arguably used rarely, it's POSIX as well,
   it is not marked obsolete either, and there are still systems
   around where it's the only editor you have, e.g. the OpenBSD
   installation image.

> Occasionally I have seen ed or cpio them used when trying to install
> a very dated package (last century), but I do not recall any use of
> 'at' or 'batch'.
> 
> I'm not suggesting that distros drop them, but I wouldn't think that
> people who rely on the FHS/LSB would really need them.

Well, as far as i understand, the LSB builds on POSIX, so to have
ed, at, and batch around is not an additional requirement imposed
by the FHS.

Yours,
  Ingo