Not a holy war - just some salient facts

Mike Meyer mwm at mired.org
Thu Apr 8 21:23:21 CDT 2010


On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:45:09 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader at newsguy.com> wrote:

> Can some advanced user here list reasons why bazaar might be better
> than mercurial, for the usage described briefly below.
> 
> Or, if merc would, in fact, be the better tool.
> 
> Usage scenario:
> 
> One repo each for hosts on home lan.  At least the linux/opensolaris
> hosts. Which amounts to some 8 hosts.  (Some are vmware guests on
> windows machines).  
> 
> Not much need for repos on windows machines here.  Or at least, I've
> never really felt the urge to do programming or experimentation on the
> windows machines, beyond installing various bits of software.
> 
> 1) (Probably) Main usage is keeping versions of quite a few OS related
>    `rc' files.  Quite a few under /etc but also /boot and the
>    directories that contain my 150 or so scripts. Also a few under
>    /var.

For this kind of thing, I'd say neither mercurial nor bazaar works
very well. Both of them store the repo with the files in question,
which means you need to keep backups of all this stuff. Using a
server-based VCS avoids that: you have the stuff that came with the
distribution, and then as you config the machine, you add/edit/commit
the changed files. You back up the central repo, and don't need to
worry about backing up the os/config parts of the clients.

CVS-derived VCS systems are slightly better - they at least store the
content on the server. However, the information about what's actually
on the server is stored in little turdlets scattered all over your
file system. If this is in any way complicated, you have to back that
information up somewhere.

FWIW, perforce rocks for this, as it stores *everything* on the server
(normally a performance problem), including what parts of the repo map
to where on the file system, with no turds at all in your local file
system. Restoring a completely trashed system amounts to doing enough
config to get it on the net under the old name, then doing "p4 sync
-f" at the root of the system.

    <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.

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