Do I need avahi?

[Joe Zeff]

On 07/28/2013 02:41 PM, lee wrote:
> Yes, so why don't they use 'disable' to disable something rather than
> "masking" it so it isn't started during booting?
>

I think that the idea is that a service that's enabled is always started 
at boot, one that's disabled doesn't get started until it's needed (and 
only then) and one that's masked doesn't get started at all.  (In fact, 
you can't start it while it's masked, even manually.)

> Do the native English speakers here agree that 'disable' means to turn
> something off so it's not available for use?  If so, I'll make a bug
> report about this.

If nothing else, the meanings of the term are sufficiently ambiguous 
that even native English speakers don't find them intuitively obvious. 
If you do file a bug report, I'd suggest that it be listed as being UI 
related, and that you post a link here so that those of us who feel the 
same can add some "me too" comments and maybe give the maintainer more 
of a sense of how much of a problem it really is.  Also, you should be 
aware that the entry for mask in the man page for systemctl explains 
just how thorough it is, because whoever maintains it might feel that 
the existing warning is all that's needed.