Re: Can I use dpkg -i to install in /usr/local or /opt?

[ujr@physik.phy.tu-dresden.de (Ulf Jaenicke-Roessler)]

W. Borgert wrote:

> Maybe I should propose an enhancement to dpkg (and also a change
> to the policy for writing the scripts in point [1.] above) to
> allow non-root installation.  One possible interface could be
> 
> dpkg --prefix=/usr/local (or /home/somebody or /opt) and the
> scripts inherit the environment variable DPKG_PREFIX from
> dpkg.  In the actual prerm script one has to write, e.g.
> 
>   install-info --quiet --remove $DPKG_PREFIX/info/foobar.info.gz

I doubt that this will ever happen. You might want to look at
http://kt.linuxcare.com/debian/dd20000907_1.epl
for some thoughts about a very similar issue.

BTW, installing with --prefix like you suggest cannot work for all
packages, because building should use (if there is autoconf support,
that is) ./configure --prefix=/usr, so there could be wrong paths
all over.


> Just an idea, but I think a useful one.  Also for people
> who want to install e.g. gnome 1.0.56 in /usr, and helix
> gnome 1.x.y in /usr/local or similar experiments.

Then they should setup a chroot environment, anyway.


  Ulf