At 9:51 AM -0400 7/30/01, Werner Reisberger is rumored to have typed:
I would prefer a solution where there is only one rc.custom as a configuration file (maybe hard linked with rc.init in the list directory).
Er...are you sure you mean this? If rc.custom is hard-linked to the list directory's rc.init, and the list directory's rc.init is hard-linked to the "main" .etc/.rc.init, changes between lists would be impossible.
And, frankly, I _like_ the linked rc.init - it allows me to make global changes to ALL of my lists easily (which is something I avoided discussing with the folks who were confused, since changing rc.init kinda blows the single/double mnemonic right outta the water) without mucking with each list's seperate rc.custom.
I do agree with you that it's not terribly intuitive, and is something that we on the list tend to go over a couple of times a year because the newbies don't understand it, but it _is_ preferable to not placing the variables in rc.custom at all, or completely destroying the rc.init system of global changes as you suggest.
The _simplest_ fix is to add this to the to of .etc/rc.custom in the distribution:
# Default values are commented with one "#", non-default with "##"
Then we can just tell people to read the file.
Charlie (who's waiting for someone to give you grief over suggesting a hard link instead of a sym link... ;)