Re: [tlug] Unix's 40th Birthday

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Curt Sampson writes:
>  > It's also going to be interesting to see if the competition can avoid
>  > the downhill slide that's started over the last couple of years. Every
>  > time I upgrade Ubuntu it gets a bit more byzantine,
>   

> [snip]
>
> I don't know WTF the big distros are thinking.  They really ought to
> put some resources into straightening out the PAM mess, for one
> thing.  That web site is horrifying, both for the quality of the
> documentation itself, and for the design whose brokenness can't be
> hidden by the docs.  It wouldn't cost that much.
>   

Gentoo is trying to clean this up PAM.  The problem is how to do it
without breaking everyones configuration.  Users don't like finding
themselves lock out of their system after an upgrade and it isn't
possible for the developers to test all possible configurations.  I
gather the other distributions are just trying to paper over PAM's
deficiencies with with tools.

Edward