I was always wonder why /etc need on a fresh installed system so much space, if there are only config files. On a fresh installed openSUSE 10.2Beta2 with KDE and some development pattern /etc need ~39 MByte on my harddisk. The question is: Which config files need all this space?
After some investigate: /etc/opt need 28 MByte and /etc/opt/gnome need 96 % of this. So why the hell need GNOME 27 MByte for config files in /etc ? I was wondering how many config keys they could have there and what they could configure within 27 MByte, but after taking a look at the files in e.g. /etc/gnome/gconf/schemas/ it become more clear. GConf store in this directory on my machine 1630 config keys, but need ~12MByte for them because they also have translations (and hints for the translators) for the key descriptions within the files.
Why store GConf translations/localisation information of key descriptions within the config files and not in seperate files e.g. under /opt/gnome ? The current behavior waste /etc with (for configuration) bootless information, make it painful to change the keys e.g. with vim and is IMO potentially incompatible with FHS 2.3 because this files are more translation than config files.
So my proposal: separate the translations from the config data and hold only a generic english description in the files under /etc (as already e.g. in firefox.schemas). This would: reduce the needed space under /etc/gnome/gconf/schemas/ significantly (e.g. for gfloppy.schemas from 64KByte to 1.5 KByte which means -97.5 %), make it easier to find the keys and values and should make it easier to update the translation part without touch the config files.
Let see what the discussion in this bug bring ...
After some investigate: /etc/opt need 28 MByte and /etc/opt/gnome need 96 % of this. So why the hell need GNOME 27 MByte for config files in /etc ? I was wondering how many config keys they could have there and what they could configure within 27 MByte, but after taking a look at the files in e.g. /etc/gnome/gconf/schemas/ it become more clear. GConf store in this directory on my machine 1630 config keys, but need ~12MByte for them because they also have translations (and hints for the translators) for the key descriptions within the files.
Why store GConf translations/localisation information of key descriptions within the config files and not in seperate files e.g. under /opt/gnome ? The current behavior waste /etc with (for configuration) bootless information, make it painful to change the keys e.g. with vim and is IMO potentially incompatible with FHS 2.3 because this files are more translation than config files.
So my proposal: separate the translations from the config data and hold only a generic english description in the files under /etc (as already e.g. in firefox.schemas). This would: reduce the needed space under /etc/gnome/gconf/schemas/ significantly (e.g. for gfloppy.schemas from 64KByte to 1.5 KByte which means -97.5 %), make it easier to find the keys and values and should make it easier to update the translation part without touch the config files.
Let see what the discussion in this bug bring ...