Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 00:37:54 -0500 (EST) From: David Gilbert <dgilbert@velocet.ca> To: Brian Dean <bsd@bsdhome.com> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: [current] Re: Confusing error messages from shell image activation Message-ID: <14900.26674.605585.357915@trooper.velocet.net> In-Reply-To: <20001210120840.C38697@vger.bsdhome.com> References: <14898.33404.356173.963351@guru.mired.org> <14898.31393.228926.763711@guru.mired.org> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0012091347030.88984-100000@turtle.looksharp.net> <200012100904.CAA27546@harmony.village.org> <3A336781.94E1646@newsguy.com> <14899.41809.754369.259894@guru.mired.org> <200012101557.KAA29588@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <14899.43958.622675.847234@guru.mired.org> <20001210120840.C38697@vger.bsdhome.com>
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>>>>> "Brian" == Brian Dean <bsd@bsdhome.com> writes: Brian> I'm really not exactly sure what you are complaining about. Brian> For example, the last time I built Emacs for Solaris (several Brian> years ago admittedly), by default it installed itself into Brian> /usr/local. If you install Emacs onto FreeBSD, it goes into Brian> /usr/local. The behaviour is the same. Are you proposing that Brian> since FreeBSD provides a set of patches so that Emacs builds Brian> cleanly, that it should therefore install it somewhere other Brian> than /usr/local? I'm jumping into the middle of an argument that I havn't been reading, but I've had the very same argument with a number of people. It's fairly predictable. For foreign or not-so-foreign packages and software, I've seen /usr/local, /local, /usr/contrib, /opt and /usr/pkg. One site that I worked at was even pedantic that /usr/contrib was for externally generated software and /usr/local was for software written and/or maintained locally. I've also worked in environments where different directory structures implied the level that the IS guys intended to support the software. Arguing about any of that in an OSS project is silly. However, I believe that /usr/ports should install all it's software in one place and that place _shouldn't_ be /usr/local. Reasoning: - having it install in /usr/X11R6 and /usr/local is confusing. Having random software put itself in either /usr/X11R6 or /usr/local is more confusing. Having ports even migrate from /usr/local to /usr/X11R6 is even more confusing. - having all ports under one tree allows you to share a tree of ports without sharing a tree of /usr. - would allow package management (eventually) to say that every file under /blah is accounted for by the package database. - (and the reason it shouldn't be /usr/local) ... many packages on the net install in /usr/local by default ... so I can see the lazyness in just accepting that. However, /usr/local is a useful place for an administrator to put things that are not part of the ports collection that he has hand compiled onto the machine. In many cases an inordinate amount of work would be required to change a piece of software that was only to be installed on one machine. It also forces all ports to be PREFIX enabled ... which is useful. Now... I think it would be useful to have arguments about more complex package software that allowed /usr/pkg/foo to hold all of foo and linking /usr/pkg/bin/foo to /usr/pkg/foo/bin/foo ... 'n stuff like that. Complete separation and versioning are desireable things. I suppose if everything was dead accurate (which it's not) you could account for every file in the namespace ... which would be way-cool ... but separating packages might be more sensible. ... but /usr/pkg supplanting /usr/local is one of the things that I like about NetBSD. Dave. -- ============================================================================ |David Gilbert, Velocet Communications. | Two things can only be | |Mail: dgilbert@velocet.net | equal if and only if they | |http://www.velocet.net/~dgilbert | are precisely opposite. | =========================================================GLO================ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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