On Sat, 29 Apr 2000, you wrote:

"Chris" <admin@brevsville.com.au> écrit:

...

SuSE puts bits in /usr/local and bits in /etc/httpd and bits in /usr/sbin ... and this is supposed to be a good thing?

`/etc/httpd' and `/usr/sbin' are system things. `/usr/local' is the usual place for local installers to put supplementary things they want to make available for all their users, once the bulk of Linux (as gotten from the CD-ROM set) is in place.

Often `/usr/local' is mounted from a different partition. When one re-installs the whole system, it's usual to remount the whole previous `/usr/local' into the new system. That's why it is best that reinstalling a system does not touch `/usr/local', and that most of locally installed extra-software is kept within `/usr/local'.

Many packages install into `/usr/local' by default already, because of this convention which is rather widespread. It is true that a few maintainers prefer to directly aim Linux distributions instead of local installers, and install in `/usr' instead of `/usr/local', but this is not a good habit.

The winning approach would be that all packages support `--prefix' or some similar configuration convention, that they install in `/usr/local' by default as this is the most common case for most installers (besides Linux packagers), and that Linux packagers like SuSE explicitely force `/usr' as an ubiquitous prefix when _they_ are preparing installable systems.

...

Whatever is decided, it'd be so nice if everyone could decide on where everything it to be put, and just put it there.

It would be nice indeed, but this is not easy to get everyone to agree spontaneously. We have to push on good things for them to occur. One of these things, that we should try to obtain, is that `/usr/local' should be fully "reserved" for local post-system installations.

-- François Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard François,

This is certainly an interesting discussion. As a matter of fact, I find this subject so important I decided to add a link to the FHS page in my sig file. Your observation about the advantage of keeping /usr/lorcal/ isolated is an important one. Perhaps this is the difference between /usr/local and /opt. Packages that go in /opt may properly write to /etc/opt/<package> and /var/opt/<package>. At least that's how I read the FHS 2.0. Thanks for taking an interest in this subject. It is very important, and requires the participation of the whole Linux community. Steve -- For a look at the future click below: http://www.winehq.com || http://www.suse.com http://www.kde.org || http://samba.anu.edu.au http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ || http://www.mozilla.org -- 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/