Re: ver_linux script updates

[David Ford <david+cert@blue-labs.org>]

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> o your script assumes bash as /bin/sh. Is this ok with everyone? Is
>   there noone running a Bourne shell only? printf and declare are not
>   in the standard Boune shell, IIRC. 


printf can be changed, declare can be changed. Ideas for agnostic 
functions would be appreciated.

> o the script hangs when calling loadkeys, because loadkeys without
>   arguments waits forever. A fix is to pass "loadkeys -V" as third
>   argument to pv(). 

Not acceptable, perhaps --junkoption will suffice

> o if you assume bash why don't you try to convert all of the code into
>   bash (inline functions) instead of using awk and sed like the old code
>   did? 

Because I'm not a bash guru and I'm trying to keep it as simple.

> o your script indicates that one should check for "not found/error" but
>   this never appears, it should be "error getting version, try manually" 

Fixed, thank you

> o the old script separated the loaded kernel modules with a space, the
>   new code with a '\n' 

Will be fixed, thank you

> o the old code correctly detects my "kbd" version, the new not, because
>   you use setleds which on my machine reports: "KDGKBLED: Invalid
>   argument" 

This is one of the two big problems with this script.  'kbd' and 
'console-tools'  are developed in parallel.  console-tools was forked 
from kbd when the console-tools author felt the kbd author wasn't being 
responsive or accepting updates to the kbd package.  Both kbd and 
console-tools vary significantly even within themselves as to version 
reporting.  I would like to get a large number of responses on this one 
to develop a more accurate reporting of both  kbd and console-tools.

> Why do you want to change this tool? To me it seems like an endless 
> task because people don't code according to standards. For example if 
> everyone could stick to let's say that 'progname --version' prints the 
> version, things would be a lot easier. 

Because it doesn't work as well as I want it to.  The previous writers 
of this script wrote it based on their choice of distribution and 
installed packages.  There has always been one or more strange outputs 
or breakage when I run it .  All of my software is compiled from 
original tarballs or cvs from the original author.  That means if the 
script doesn't detect it correctly, then the script is trying to detect 
a mutation of the original source, i.e. a package from a distribution.

This means that the script needs to evolve because different 
distributions are going to have differing results.

I strongly agree that "--version" woud make life pretty simple here, but 
unfortunately (i.e. kbd and console-tools).

In a side note, if anybody has a reliable way of getting pppd to 
-always- report the version number, please tell me.  To get it to fail, 
put some junk in /etc/ppp/options, i.e. a not currently existing modem 
device such as /dev/usb/acm/0.

Thank you for your feedback,
David


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