Re: Test Binary Release of XFree 86 4.3

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Chris McKillop wrote:
> Yes, and starts Xphoton (the old system).  It is only there for legacy
> purposes and will not remain forever (ie: I could see this backwards
> compatibility going away in 6.3).

I was only talking about the version that are already released.
I am not too concerned about the future QNX versions since you
can do whatever needed to accomodate changes...

>
> That isn't correct, the rule is hard (don't argue with the guy that did
> the packaging!<grin>).  You ask ssh or perl where there are compiled for
> and where thier "parts" live and they will all claim to have stuf in /opt.
>  The fact that /opt/bin/perl also shows up as /usr/bin/perl is a feature
> of fs-pkg and, in a system installed without fs-pkg (a future possibilty),
> they will not be unioned into /usr.  You can't rely on this behavior for

If that's the case, you shouldn't make "perl" unioned. If another package
relies on perl, and since /usr/bin is before /opt/bin in the PATH,
the package will be "configure"'ed to have /usr/bin/perl (either
as the first line #!/usr/bin/perl or coded into the program body),
how do you expect those packages to work on a system without fs-pkg?
/usr/bin/perl doesn't exist!
If we care about the compatibility between systems with and without
fs-pkg, we should NOT make a package using features (such as union)
that are only supported by fs-pkg.

In all, I think your argument about "no fs-pkg compatibility" does
make sense. But in reality, packages from the 3rd party CD don't
seem to care about that.

> proper operation.  Also note that the unioning is from /opt to /usr, not
> /usr to /opt.

that's not an issue, you can rename /usr/X11R6 to /opt/X11R6, and
make it union back. From end users point of view, who cares if
/usr/X11R6 is from /opt/X11R6, or /opt/X11R6 is from /usr/X11R6.
as long as they are the same.

> Lastly, things that introduce thier own top-level directory
> structure in /opt (Mozilla, Opera, X11R6) do not union into /usr.
>

That's interesting. Is this a limitation? or people just
don't want to do it?

>
> PS - Why haven't you guys checked in the XPhoton sources directly to the
> XFree86 project's CVS tree?
>

Because we don't own the XPhoton source.
I talked to Garry a few times before the XFree86 4.3 release, and
he was going to submitted XPhoton in. Unfortunately, he got sick
and then missed the 4.3 deadline. Once 4.3 was released, he didn't
feel the pressure anymore :)  I will send him an email to remind
him to submit it in. Feel free to mention this to him if you "see" him.

Frank



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