From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Sep 7 13:01:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA08107 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 13:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from usr07.primenet.com (tlambert@usr07.primenet.com [206.165.6.207]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA08090 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 13:01:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr07.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA24896; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 13:01:06 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199709072001.NAA24896@usr07.primenet.com> Subject: Re: what do you think ... should/could ports move to -> /usr/local/ports ? To: evanc@synapse.net (Evan Champion) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:01:05 +0000 (GMT) Cc: andreas@klemm.gtn.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <3412C092.57D67DA9@synapse.net> from "Evan Champion" at Sep 7, 97 10:56:18 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > I'm just repartitioning my system. When thinking about a new > > disk layout and partitioning I came to the conclusion, that > > putting the ports collection to /usr/local/ports would be cleaner, > > than using /usr/ports. > > I find that /usr/local/ is overused as it is. You could move it to > /usr/local/ and make a symlink, or make a new slice for /usr/ports/. Each package should go into an independently mountable subsection of the FS. A volume/package descriptor, if you will. That lets me move descriptors around at will, if they are non-local. Consider the case of an IR capable laptop accessing a copy of a presentation software package in a West coast office via an ethernet connection to an NFS server in the West cost office, and via an IR link to an NFS server in the East coast office. The software doesn't need to take up space on the laptop proper, but unlike Windows 95/NT, where the volume identifier is important (it's hard-coded in the registry), it could be totally anonymous; preferrably, the package name. Ideally, you would install each package on it's own LP which consisted of one or more PP's (logical/physical partitions; like in AIX, a PP would be ~4M in size -- or smaller). See, you don't want to acess /usr/local/ports or /usr/ports, you want to access a software package. Only a slight modification is necessary for NFS to export package identifiers instead of volume identifiers. The last piece is the name services modification needed to say "servers x, y, and z export package Q" when the name service is asked "where is package Q?". Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.