Going back some years (a lot) when I ran Suse and it came with a lot of documentation they mentioned files in addition to the system files that were run after these and wouldn’t be changed during updates so anything a user had added would remain unchanged. Can some one tell me what these are now?
I vaguely remember that there was something similar available at log in too.
I may have answerer my own question if this is still correct
Table 7-1 Bash Configuration Files for Login Shells
File Description
/etc/profile Do not modify this file, otherwise your modifications can be destroyed during your next update!
/etc/profile.local Use this file if you extend /etc/profile
/etc/profile.d/ Contains system-wide configuration files for specific programs
~/.profile Insert user specific configuration for login shells here
This is off the web from an ancient Suse Server manual probably.
Maybe some one can confirm. There must be others as well. The sort of addition I mean is adding the services needed to allow cups to provide an Apple Airprinter or adding Alsa items such as an equaliser but something I found along a similar line is graphical so would probably need a similar facility in kde. As things stand I can load these sorts of things from the console but they are lost on a reboot.
I have used X11 to remap a graphics tablet to the screen. In this case the aspect ratio of the tablet and screen didn’t match but where should I put this sort of thing. I use a Hanvon tablet. These are rather good quality - much better than some others and a driver is available for them. There is some info on remapping here. I asked him to add this directly to the driver but at the same time found that it could be done with X11. It seemed best to do it that way. The same should apply to any tablet.
http://forschung.wi.uni-passau.de/~ond/myweb/hw/hanvon/
The problem with this whole area is that there doesn’t seem to be a tutorial about including just when things are run enabling people to determine what can be put in them. Loosing changes due to an update is a bit of a problem. The tablet remapping is good instance - ages to find out how to do it and have now completely forgotten. ;)The one I have now is too big. It’s so long ago I hope I remember the X11 aspect correctly.
Those config/bash files still applies to any openSUSE release until today, provided you did not compile/rebuild your bash shell without the openSUSE patches.
I don’t know if those file might be used for anything else, but I’ve only ever used them to set environmental variables, in particular
/etc/profile.local
/etc/profile.d/
Both the above files and locations would be unaffected by any system changes like updating and upgrading.
As for the other topics in your post… You should first understand that Linux subsystems and hardware support has improved radically over the past 4 years or so. Unlike previous kernels, modern linux kernels have massively better hardware support with drivers included. By including in the kernel, driver support has become much more standardized and better debugged. Hardware detection (and driver installation) is also much improved through use of udev instead of previous hotplug systems. So, at the very least any issues and manual configuration in “old” linux is likely no longer needed (at least for old devices). If any installation and configuration might be needed, it would probably be very different today.
Modifying X11 configurations is rare nowadays, since more often than not we are running kernel mode drivers with fairly reliable embedded configurations. Beware even creating an X11 config (which would not be located in any of the locations described in this post), you can create more problems. Your first try should be to install a capable DE appropriate for your device. In fact, you may find that if you install on a touchscreen device, a number of touch related packages should be installed.
You’ll probably have to re-investigate support for Apple printers (if anything is even needed).
HTH,
TSU