Hello.
I'm writing to you as to maintainer of FHS multiarch proposal.
(http://www.linuxbase.org/futures/ideas/multiarch/)
I'm working on Debian cross-toolchain packages. Recentry, there was a short
discussion on debian-devel mailing list
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/07/msg00517.html) about
placement of files of cross-compilation environment. In that discussion,
Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de> suggested me
to get in contact with FHS multiarch maintainer with the following issue.
Cross-compilation setup is not the same as multiarch setup: multiarch is
about running different architecture binaries on the system (and building
binaries intended to run on the same system), while cross-compilation is
about building binaries for foriegn architectures, that can't run on the
build system.
However, both multiarch and cross-compilation setups require of
installation of libraries and headers for different architectures on the
same host. So it seems reasonable to use common policies about placing
those files.
Cross-compilation setups are in wide use for many years, and there is a
de-facto standard that libs are placed into ${prefix}/${target}/lib, and
headers are placed into ${prefix}/${target}/include. This convention is
coded in binutils and gcc packages, as well as in other toolchains.
This differs from what you propose for multiarch (${prefix}/lib/${target}
ans ${prefix}/include/${target}). Your argument is that you wish to
prevent /usr pollution.
But it seems that this 'pollution' argument is not strong enough to change
the way how cross-compilation setups worked for years.
*) The 'pollution' is actually tiny - number of 'arch directories' that
will appear under /usr will not be larger than number of architectures
that multiarch system supports - which is probably very small.
*) Having things placed under common prefix makes it easier to create
chroots, target system images and similar things.
*) Many existing cross-compilation tools work with current setup, and quite
a lot developers expect things to be this way.
What do you thing about the above?
Isn't it better to make multiarch proposal consistent with de-facto
standard of cross-compilation setup?
WBR,
Nikita Youshchenko.
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