Re: [Fwd: Re: [Dlc-discuss] [Fwd: Linux fragmentation and desktop standards]]

dep <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.kde.cafe
Message-ID <[email protected]>
begin  James Richard Tyrer's  quote:

| My major complaint can be stated in a simple example: Where to you
| put a Mozilla plugin:
|
| 	/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
|
| 	/usr/mozilla/plugins/
|
| 	/usr/local/mozilla/plugins/
|
| Nobody has explained to me why the first one is better or more
| logical.

actually, according to the fhs all three are wrong. the *only* thing 
that is allowed to reside in its own directory under /usr if the fhs 
is followed is /usr/X11R6.

now. there *is* a fhs provision for keeping things together in their 
own directories. it is called /opt. that is, in fact, what it's there 
for -- everybody latches onto the wording about how it's stuff that 
has been installed other than by the distribution, but that is plain 
crap: look at just about any source tarball, and where does 
./configure default to? /usr/local, with the stuff all spread out 
among the directories there. clearly, if /opt were where the stuff 
you install yourself is to go, that's where ./configure would want to 
put it (and for many packages, if you put 'em there they wouldn't 
work without modifying a lot of paths). the distinguishing feature of 
/opt is that it lets stuff stay together -- of real practical 
importance if one wants to compile multi-package things like kde that 
might break in the second or third package. if it's splattered all 
across /usr, you're screwed, because restoring the old version is a 
real pain (unless you use, say, checkinstall and it works).

i've been hollering about this for better than five years, all over 
the place, in books and magazine pieces and on linux planet and in 
linux and main. and the chance of its doing good is the same as the 
chance that i'll sprout antlers by morning.
-- 
dep

http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within
the envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.

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