Steve Sheriff wrote:
On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, you wrote:
Steve Sheriff wrote:
We have 6.3 installed but with lots of updated libraries and executables installed via tarballs e.g. the latest glib-1.2.7 and gtk+-1.2.7. (to install the excellent new sane-1.0.2)
My fear is that when I 'update' to 6.4, some of the tar.gz installs may be overwritten by the SuSE rpm's. I see that normally the tarballs install in /usr/local/bin whereas the rpm's go to /usr/bin.
Is it intentional in Linux to distinguish between the tar and the rpm installation in this manner?
This is usual and intentional. However, it isn't so much distinguishing between RPM and tar, as between user installed programs and distro-installed programs (sort of).
The /usr/local tree is for user installed programs, or probably more accurately, user *compiled* programs, as theoretically, they shouldn't be touched during and update, since a distro isn't meant to touch anything with local in its name (for exampe, /usr/local/, or /etc/profile.local). This explains why your tar files go in /usr/local.
RPMs, on the other hand, have version control built in, and are normally provided by the distributors in the first place (for example the SuSE produced XFree4.0 RPMs). This means that even though they are still user installed, when it comes to distro upgrade time, the distro should 'upgrade' an RPM with a higher version number than the 'new' one. This means that it's safe to put these in the normal /usr tree.
In short, it's all just a mechanism to protect you from what you're worried about - an update destroying your setup. Unfortunately it doesn't always work, but...
I don't think I've explained this very well, but I'll have to leave it at that because I've got to go now,
Hi Chris, Hi everyone.
On the contary, we think it is a very good description of something that we have not been able to find documentation on.
The main concern was not the binaries in /usr/local/bin but the libraries from which they were built. I guess that is where your 'Unfortunately it doesn't always work', comes from no?
Yes, when I said that, I was speaking primarily of libraries - they're always a pain to keep track of.
BTW, just deleted the rpm's of the tar updates I got without any consequences. Confidence inspiring indeed!
Well, good luck with your update, Chris -- Apologies to everyone who has been waiting for replies off me over the past few weeks - I've been away from my computer. I'll try to catch up with my email over the coming days, but don't be surprised if you get a reply in a month's time... __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/