/etc/motd template

[Karl Goetz]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:48:57 -0600
"Dustin Kirkland" <kirkland at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 10:18 AM, Bryce Harrington
> <bryce at canonical.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 09:49:08AM -0600, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> >>     To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:
> >>     http://help.ubuntu.com/
> >
> > Couldn't this be shortened to one line?
> >
> >      Access official Ubuntu documentation at http://help.ubuntu.com/
> 
> I'd agree with that.

Remember after translation it may still be over one line (the line
above is 64 chars, so there is 15 spare).

> 
> > The disclaimer does seem excessive, particularly from the sense of
> > being a "Message of the Day", since it will never change.
> > Displaying it one time on first boot, and then just a short
> > reference after would make sense?
> 
> Agreed, thanks.  I'm looking for some consensus, if there's any more
> out there...

Personally I think the 'more information can be found here' section
should stay in.

> 
> >     Your system uses free software; please see ... for terms.
> >
> > What might be slick would be if this could detect if non-free
> > software is installed on the system, and highlight that too.
> 
> That would be easy to implement with an update-motd hook, if someone
> has a script that detects non-free software.  We'd just need to find
> the right package to put that script in, and install a symlink it
> into, say, /etc/update-motd/daily.

You could try VRMS, but it does rely on packages announcing themselves
correctly (by licence/category). Might be a starting point at
least.

kk

-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian user / gNewSense contributor
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group