I know linux purists hate me for this, but I've been contemplating the
concept of a registry under Linux.

The mere idea of a global registery seems to get everyone all bouncing
around and running away screaming "it's evil, it's evil".

But I think it's also neccesary. And since I haven't heard of any such
thing in existance, I was wondering about throwing around the idea to see
what people think. Honestly, putting aside your distaste of the concept,
what do people think would need to be done, to make sure it was done
properly? What features would it need to support, etc.

And besides which, last time I checked my gnome desktop was already doing
something akin to a registry idea for its own apps, just slower. And the
two are already trying to share data in some areas. A registry is just a
unification and optimisation of the concept.

I'm bringing this up, because yet again I was plesently suprised when my
Windoze standard-"open document" dialog allowed me to switch to thumnail
view while I was looking for a bunch of pictures to zip up and send to
someone. It also allowed me to open the file in my usual image viewer for a
closer look, right then and there. The major desktops which implement
standard dialogs, could well use such a feature. Perhaps if a virtual file
association along the lines of "default file browser" existed, one rule
could be that it had to be able to export a file browser widget to anything
that wanted one. So your default file browser would not only be there when
you open one of those folder icons in your desktop, or give a directory name
in the "run ..." dialog from the desktop menu, but would also pop up in the
standard file open dialogs. In fact, even said standard dialogs could
become a virtual "file association" (concept under a better name, of
course), so that if several applications export their own which conform to
the expected API, you could pick whichever one you want via a configuration
utility).

I accept that perhaps it's not for general use, that would preclude some
software from running on imbedded systems and the likes. But on such
systems you're probably not going to be running KDE or Gnome anyhow.

So how about implementing it as a seperate unit, for the time being, having
it utilised by the major desktops such as KDE and Gnome. If it was
implemented seperately from either, but with input from both, the next
version of these desktops could support a compatible means to share a lot of
their configuration. Especially if the register daemon allowed a program to
create "soft links" between registry items, therefore allowing you "default"
one item to another. It should also save every single program having to be
able to read and write umpteen different configuration file formats, in
order to get the cross-application information they need to sanely get
application interoperation happening on a decent scale. (Including a more
intelligent clipboard)

I was basically thinking you could have a /etc/registry file which appart
from setting some registry-internals, would have a list of "application
registries" to import at start up; either in a registry.d directory, or a
list of filenames so the registries could be kept with the applications in
question. The list of filenames would have the advantage of preserving
"install order". Which may or may not be useful.

If each applications registry tree was loaded into a specified location:
/applications/author/application/...
(or thereabouts would do), and then appropriate portions were then mirrored
into a global tree (such as requested file associations) by the registry
daemon.

Each user would also have their own registry file on their account, which
would contain application portions:
/user/applications/author/application/...
Likewise this would be merged into the "virtual" global tree. There would
also be other bits and pieces in the user section, such as priority of file
associations where more than one binary claim a given executable.
(Presumably, the one with the highest priority, would be the "default
action".)

It may also be advisable for applications to have a "default user" part,
which is mirrored onto the users branch for that application, with any
changes they make overwriting the defaults. (the concept of a "default"
setting would also therefore exist, whereby th user overide was simply
removed from their registry allowing the original mirrored setting to show
through).

If the in-memory portion of the registry was essentially a cache, with the
disk-side version being kept in an optimised form to accelerate searching
for out-of-memory data, and the virtual structure was expressed well enough,
the idea may just well work satisfactorially for even the Linux folk to
consider.

It would even be quite possible to implement a psudo-filesystem which could
be mounted on demand (by a Gnome or KDE app) to re-create the old filesystem
should some software need it (a configuration option -- mount virtual
configuration directory).

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Fredderic tempted the fates in alt.os.linux
by proclaiming the following to be true:

> I know linux purists hate me for this, but I've been contemplating the
> concept of a registry under Linux.

X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000

Shut up.

- --
+Chiron+ ( Fortune's real live weird band names #86:
GnuPG Pub Key 848D1A2D -o) ) Bloody Stools
Linux Kernel 2.4.20 /\\ (
Slackware 8.1 *w00t* _\_v )
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On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 15:07:57 +1000, Fredderic wrote:

> I know linux purists hate me for this, but I've been contemplating the
> concept of a registry under Linux.

Honest to God.

> The mere idea of a global registery seems to get everyone all bouncing
> around and running away screaming "it's evil, it's evil".

No, it is just a really stupid idea, only suitable for central control of
the user's computer and activities. It is to computers what autocracy is
to government.

It makes a system less reliable, less robust, less able to recover from a
single-point error.

It has NOTHING to say in its favor, unless you are Bill Gates and you
intend to control the user's actions and force even greater dependence on
the OS.

> But I think it's also neccesary.

What a minute. Where's your argument? What list of virtues were you
planning to present, and when?

> And besides which, last time I checked my gnome desktop was already
> doing something akin to a registry idea for its own apps, just slower.
> And the two are already trying to share data in some areas.

Data sharing is not the same thing at all.

> A registry
> is just a unification and optimisation of the concept.

No, a central registry has nothing to do with data sharing. They are
spearate concepts. If it did, then p2p file sharing would be impossible.

> I'm bringing this up, because yet again I was plesently suprised when my
> Windoze standard-"open document" dialog allowed me to switch to thumnail
> view while I was looking for a bunch of pictures to zip up and send to
> someone. It also allowed me to open the file in my usual image viewer
> for a closer look, right then and there.

You have just revealed your ignorance of this topic. Object orientation in
programming, specifically data encapsulation and sharing through
standardized interfaces, which is what you are discussing, has nothing
whatever to do with a central registry.

> The major desktops which
> implement standard dialogs, could well use such a feature.

This is beyond ignorance.

Enough. The remainder of your post wander away from its supposed topic.

--
Paul Lutus
www.arachnoid.com

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On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 23:02:31 +0000, Paul Lutus wrote:

>
> Honest to God.
>
> You have just revealed your ignorance of this topic. Object orientation in
> programming, specifically data encapsulation and sharing through
> standardized interfaces, which is what you are discussing, has nothing
> whatever to do with a central registry.
>
> This is beyond ignorance.
>
> Enough. The remainder of your post wander away from its supposed topic.

The tone of your follow-up post was a little condescending don't you
think? Okay, a central registry is a B-A-D idea - I think so also, but as
I am about to demonstrate with a follow-up post of my own to the original
post, it *is* possible to verhmently disagree with a point, whilst remaining
corteous, taking time to explain arguments, and not making myself look
completely socially inept and ignorant.

Linux has always been developed by groups of highly talented,
*free-thinking* people - I feel that posting arrogant messages and not
taking the time to politely explain your points goes against that entire
principle, and could potentially discourage many users from initiating
future discussions, some of which may bring some amazing ideas and valid
points to the table.

My two pence worth...

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I am not overly keen on the idea of a Linux registry. At the moment, I
like the way that applications store their settings for two main reasons:

1 - As many, many, MANY windoze users have found out, it is not a good
idea to store all of your eggs in one basket. If the registry corrupts,
the system is pretty much good for nothing - there have been numerous
occurences of Windows even refusing to start after suffering a broken
registry. At least with the system the way it is now, if something goes
wrong, and one of my config files is trashed, it is fairly isolated. I'd
much rather have to go through the hassle of re-entering settings for one
application, than losing and having to re-enter all my preferences for
every one of my apps, or even worse, having to completely reinstall.

2 - I know where pretty much all of my configuration files will be stored,
and they are mostly human-readable. If for some reason I have trashed a
config so badly that I need to edit the configuration file by hand, I
simply open a text editor and make changes, which is a hell of a lot
easier than locating some obscure registry key in a specific registry
editor and figuring out what it means, and what I need to change it to.

As operating systems evolve and become more complex, so do the myriad of
configuration files. These all need to be organised in some way, but for
my money, I'd pick the "many files, but all stored in a logical
progressive manner" Linux method of doing things to the "one huge file
storing every single preference" Windows and (to some extent) Mac OS X
method.

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On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 07:16:40 +0000, GilesX wrote:

> On Fri, 06 Dec 2002 23:02:31 +0000, Paul Lutus wrote:
>
>>
>> Honest to God.
>>
>> You have just revealed your ignorance of this topic. Object orientation in
>> programming, specifically data encapsulation and sharing through
>> standardized interfaces, which is what you are discussing, has nothing
>> whatever to do with a central registry.
>>
>> This is beyond ignorance.
>>
>> Enough. The remainder of your post wander away from its supposed topic.
>
> The tone of your follow-up post was a little condescending don't you
> think?

How does this relate to the topic?

--
Paul Lutus
www.arachnoid.com

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On Sat, 07 Dec 2002 00:36:24 +0000, Paul Lutus wrote:

>
> How does this relate to the topic?

It doesn't, but it certainly made *me* feel a lot better...

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In article <3df18e37_1@news.iprimus.com.au>, Fredderic wrote:
> I know linux purists hate me for this, but I've been contemplating the
> concept of a registry under Linux.
>

Well then, create one. See if anyone uses it. There's a reason no
registry exists for real operating systems.

The MS registry, like most MS solutions, is simply a kludge - peroid.

- Kurt

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Fredderic <fredderic@iprimus.com.au> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
3df18e37_1@news.iprimus.com.au...
> I know linux purists hate me for this, but I've been contemplating the
> concept of a registry under Linux.
There is already a "registry" in *NIX, called /etc/*. Only it is much, much
better than what has been brought up by M$.
Look at the various standards proposed by the Linux Standards Base, File
Hierarchy Standard.
The /etc/ approach follows the UNIX approach:
- do only one little thing
- do only that
- do it well
- do not have any side-effects
By doing atomic, orthogonal things and by being able to combine them into
something bigger, you are able to create big things out of small building
blocks.

> But I think it's also neccesary.
> What features would it need to support, etc.
Why? What features are you missing from /etc/ ?

>
> I'm bringing this up, because yet again I was plesently suprised when my
> Windoze standard-"open document" dialog allowed me to switch to thumnail
> view while I was looking for a bunch of pictures to zip up and send to
> someone. It also allowed me to open the file in my usual image viewer for
a
> closer look, right then and there. The major desktops which implement
> standard dialogs, could well use such a feature. Perhaps if a virtual
file
> association along the lines of "default file browser" existed, one rule
> could be that it had to be able to export a file browser widget to
anything
> that wanted one. So your default file browser would not only be there
when
> you open one of those folder icons in your desktop, or give a directory
name
> in the "run ..." dialog from the desktop menu, but would also pop up in
the
> standard file open dialogs. In fact, even said standard dialogs could
> become a virtual "file association" (concept under a better name, of
> course), so that if several applications export their own which conform to
> the expected API, you could pick whichever one you want via a
configuration
> utility).
There is already such a mechanism, implemented by environment variables. If
you wnat to edit something, a well-written program starts up the editor
which is defined in your env var $EDITOR, if it wants to print, it "prints"
to $PRINTER. Flexible, expendable, concise, short, editable with any text
editor. Try repairing your registtry with EDLIN!

What you are missing most is a default viewer for each document type and a
method to access it from every program. Something along the apsfilter
printer utility combined with a viewer and a method to call it from every
program.

>
> Each user would also have their own registry file on their account, which
> would contain application portions:
> [...]
> It may also be advisable for applications to have a "default user" part,
> which is mirrored onto the users branch for that application, with any
>
You can do that with
/opt/my_killer_app/etc/*.rc having network-wide defaults (/opt/my_killer_app
can then be mounted read-only over the network)
/etc/my_killer_app.rc having defaults for this machine (depending on the
hardware and purpose of this machine)
/home/<user>/.my_killer_app.rc defaults for this <user> (what colors, ...)
$ my_killer_app --color=dark_blue invocation by the user, overriding
anything that is specified in the configuration files

Regards
Martin

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Sat, 7 Dec 2002 05:05 pm will from hence forward be known as the day +Chiron+
blabbered:

> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
>
> Shut up.

awww come-on +Chiron+ he did waffle on seeminglessly for all eternity.

:P

--
remember this is the sequence of events, in no particular order

Registered Linux User 282072
<www.volutin.net -- everything irrelevant>

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