[HEADS-UP] Rawhide: /tmp is now on tmpfs

[Pádraig Brady]

On 06/01/2012 12:15 AM, Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
> On Thursday, May 31 2012, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
>> On 05/31/2012 12:45 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
>>> On 05/31/2012 08:14 AM, Roberto Ragusa wrote:
> 
>>> Now /var/tmp should be "more persistent" which we don't need,
>> Correct, using /var/tmp is wrong and a mistake.
>>
>> IMO, advising people to modify their code to using /var/tmp instead of
>> /tmp is absurd and evidence of ignorance towards traditional use of
>> /tmp and the FHS.
> 
> I couldn't say better.
> 
>>> So I'll patch sort to default to /var/tmp rather than /tmp.
> 
> Please don't.  As many pointed out, there are many disadvantages in
> doing this, and I really do not think we should be "fixing" (sic) our
> apps because of such a controversial feature.  `sort' and other programs
> have been working right like this for *years*; introducing such change
> would mean "please give me more bugs", as Ralf pointed out.

Well Ralf didn't impart any info as to why moving to /var/tmp would be a bug.
If it's a symlink to /tmp on older systems then there is no change.
But if the system /tmp is tmpfs then it would be a bug not to change,
which is the new default on debian IIUC.
BTW there is a long recent thread debian thread about the issues:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/05/thrd3.html#01092

The main issue I see at the moment is that apps have
overloaded /tmp for different things and it will
take time to tease these things out.

Don't worry I'm not going to jump to anything rashly,
but `sort` needs to spool to non RAM, so we'll have to
adjust if /tmp is RAM.

cheers,
Pádraig.