Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 17:22:26 -0500 From: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OT: Ports & packages don't belong in /usr/local Message-ID: <20010425172226.A75534@cec.wustl.edu> In-Reply-To: <15079.19123.571171.159852@guru.mired.org>; from mwm@mired.org on Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 05:07:47PM -0500 References: <64957189@toto.iv> <15079.19123.571171.159852@guru.mired.org>
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On Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 05:07:47PM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote: > Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> types: > > On Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 05:35:40AM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote: > > > The system is what comes on your CD-ROM. > > > > You are forgetting that this is the networked generation. Not everybody > > even has an ISO available. Today, with broadband and the like, it's easy > > to do an FTP install without ever touching a CD. Therefore you can't > > apply any standard to third-party software; the CD test breaks down. > > Actually, the network is a *crictical* part of the equation. For > "CD-ROM", read "OS distribution", and for "comes on", read is "is > automatically reproducible from": > > The system is what is automatically reproducible from your OS > distribution. > > Packages and ports are clearly part of that. > > Of course, the issue of "where it comes from" is a red herring. The > real issue is system management. For instance, what do I have to do to > restore it if the disk dies, or what do I go if there are problems? > > For the base system, ports and packages the answer is "you can > reinstall the stuff from the OS distribution." Things that have > another source - whether you wrote them, ported an applications > source, or got a port or package from somewhere else - need a > different strategy. If you have to apply this alternate strategy to > those things, you may well be wasting time and effort for no good > reason. > > Now, if some command breaks and you want to fix it, what do you do? > If it is reproducible from the OS distribution, then you need to use > whatever methods the OS has for getting support. On FreeBSD, the best > method depends on what you're dealing with. Submitting a pr should > work for everything, including ports and packages, even though it may > not be optimal. If something wasn't created from the OS distribution, > sending a PR probably isn't going to do me any good. Being able to > determine that at a glance saves time and effort. > > This distinction helps even if you're like me, and your first reaction > when something breaks is to go look at the source. Systems sources are > in a single, well-defined place, and the command usually points > straight to them. Sources to ports and packages are similarly in a > single well-defined place, or can be trivially made to appear in that > place if you clean things up. On my system, sources to things that > weren't built with the OS distribution are in a single, well-defined > place. Being able to tell which of the three source trees I need to > look in at a glance saves me time and effort. > > Those aren't "who compiled it, where did the source come from, etc." > issues, they are system management issues. Being able to segregate > these two classes of things is important to some people. To others, it > isn't - but they can merge them back with a single command. If you > can show me how I can keep things that aren't reproducible from the OS > distribution in /usr/local - where they traditionally belong - while > at the same time installing ports in /usr/local segregated with a > single command, I'll concede the point. You make good points. I think we're the only two guys on this thread that make any sense. What we have here is simple matter of preference. I think you will concede that packages do NOT belong in the /usr tree along with the base system. This is not what /usr was intended for. If anything, I'll bet you created a /usr/local/pkg or something similar to segregate ports and packages? People before were arguing that packages belong in /usr, the way linux packaging systems dump everything in /usr. This is absolutely ridiculous. Surely you conced that the ports are site-specific, albeit easily rebuilt in the event of problems. Therefore, the belong somewhere in the local tree. The difference between you and me, then, is that I don't care to separate the stuff I retrieved by hand and the stuff in the ports; you do. This is exactly why UNIX is configurable: skillful administrators have different beliefs and preferences about where things belong. However, I think it is poor practice to dump everything in /usr. No ports belong there. Like I said, if there *is* a port that belongs in /usr, the committers should pull the port into the contrib tree and elminate the port, like was done with OpenSSH. -- Andrew Hesford ajh3@chmod.ath.cx To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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