Arch Linux

B-Con

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2007-12-17

Posts: 554

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start_udev in /etc/?

I just did an ls of /etc/ and was surprised to see an executable script in there. Turns out it's "start_udev", which a quick Google search shows apparently belongs in /sbin, but is not there on my system.

ls -l shows the last file modified date is 2007-11-15, which I is just a couple days before I actually installed Arch. I've had some system clock issues, but nothing that set the date off by just a few days.

Anyone know of an explanation? Should I just move it to my /sbin and hope nothing else is broken?

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- My AUR packages.

abstracity

Member

From: Houston, USA

Registered: 2007-08-08

Posts: 83

Re: start_udev in /etc/?

The PKGBUILD of udev shows that "start_udev" is explicitly installed into $startdir/pkg/etc/start_udev:

# install start_udev script
install -D -m755 $startdir/src/start_udev $startdir/pkg/etc/start_udev

If you move the file to /sbin/ and do nothing else, it will no longer be under pacman's control, so if the udev package is removed from your system in the future, the file will be a ghost.  If you are intent on moving it to where you think is the proper place for it, you could modify the PKGBUILD and indicate the new folder pacman should put it in.  As an alternative, you could also modify udev's datebase file: /var/lib/pacman/local/udev-116-3/files (replacing "116-3" with the correct version number of course).

And as a final note, here is an excerpt taken from the Udev article on the Arch wiki:

The startudev program has been removed. Use /etc/start_udev if you want to reload your udev rules.

I personally think it is okay for a script to be in /etc/, as others exist in there also, such as daemons and cron jobs.

EDIT: On the idea of whether or not moving "start_udev" could result in udev's breakage, study the PKGBUILD and check the documentation for udev, and possibly try moving it yourself if you want.  As long as you have the Arch Install CD ready and you know how to boot into it, what is the harm?

Last edited by abstracity (2008-01-03 08:22:38)

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Without error there can be no brilliancy. ― Emanuel Lasker

mico

Member

From: Slovenia

Registered: 2004-02-08

Posts: 247

Re: start_udev in /etc/?

And about the "wrong" timestamp: there is nothing wrong if a file's last modified timestamp is before you installed Archlinux. It is the same as the file timestamp in pkg.tar.gz archive, in this case /var/cache/pacman/pkg/udev-116-3-i686.pkg.tar.gz