Re: File locations for linux (and mostly other *nix too)

The /opt tree is a historical artifact of the commercial Unix days... it
hasn't been widely used on Linux and is even less used by (open source)
applications on Linux.  For a directory-tree based install like Squeak, the
options are generally to package it up for a given distro (which would
spray files across the file system... another historical artifact and
increasingly out of fashion for GUI apps) or distribute a tarball and let
the user decide where to put it.  The 'modern' Linux approach to dealing
with this is one of the packaged app formats (I like AppImage personally)
which behave a lot more like OS X applications in that they hide the
directory tree in an archive file that gets extracted transparently at
runtime out of view of the user.

On Mon, Jun 15, 2026 at 6:59 PM tim Rowledge <[email protected]> wrote:

> For far too long (eh, like 30 years) the directory layout we are using for
> the various flavours of *nix have annoyed me. This is a fixable problem.
>
> There is an actual standard that people are supposed to adhere to; it’s
> the "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard” as per
> https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/index.html
>
> My understanding of this standard suggests that we should be installing
> all the ’static’ parts  (the VM, the .sources, any default config files,
> arguably the initial release .image & .changes) in the /opt tree (per
> https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s13.html) under a
> ’squeak’ subdirectory. For the VM I would suggest making use of the
> multiple version trick used by the development make system whereby the base
> VM directory has more than one lib/squeak/{complicated name release/version
> thing}, and a modestly clever shell script that finds the right one to use
> for the image being fired up. I think we have a suitable script somewhere
> that Dave L has kept alive?
>
> We would need to modify the SmalltalkImage>>#sourcesFilePaths code to add
> the ‘proper’ location, which I suggest would be /opt/squeak/shared. I could
> swear we used to have a primitive that helped work out the appropriate
> platform places to look at, but maybe I’m misremembering? I *don’t think*
> that the vm path is a good place in general, and I suspect that the old
> related code that fusses about misusing aliases (in
> SmalltalkImage>>#openSourcesAndChanges:forImage:) is now out of date.
>
> Related but applicable to most platforms, it seems to me that the
> behaviour of the assorted all-in-one & platform specific packages is not
> just wrong but dangerous when using them to start a new default image. The
> default image is after all effectively the ‘default template’ that many
> creative applications use for a first start or ‘New File’ option. That file
> should be read-only and the startup script should make a copy of it in a
> more user-visible directory, not use the initial one and let naive users
> corrupt it by playing with it and saving a damaged version. This could
> perhaps be managed with the config wizard for example, which would provide
> an opportunity to explain why this is done.
>
> Anyone want to argue otherwise?
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [email protected]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> "How many Motie Warriors does it take to change a lightbulb?”
> "None. One of the dead ones will do it."
>
>
>
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