Re: Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 2.0 (fwd)
On Tue, 4 Nov 1997, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote:
> what about this :
> the new to-be 2.1 distribution should be empty (not all these symlinkls
> to the old hamm tree), and only real new packages with fhs should go
> there.
>
> this will allow an easy way for most packages to update.
Yes, we can keep track of them, and yes most individual packages won't
have a problem.
> for complicated things like email, where all packages have to be
> upgraded at once, a team of maintainer should do the task,
> so there is a central group, that will change all e.g. mail packages at
> the same time.
As you are saying here, the problem is between package interaction, when
there is half old and half new. By making the 2.1 tree empty, we aren't
guaranteeing that users won't install some mix of the two, and during the
conversion, there will be problems (aren't there always). E.g. how do you
propose that a user who has programs/scripts that they wrote implement the
conversion at the right time. Also a slow conversion of the docs
directory means I have to look at two places to find it (and things like
the web server links to /usr/doc/ would only have access to half of the
docs). My point is, a lot of things will break of users have the system
in between states, which will probably happen this way.
> i don't think we need symlinks.
> e.g. /usr/doc <-> /usr/share/doc isn't a good thing, will cause far more
> trouble than worth.
I haven't heard the technical reasons why dpkg can't handle sym links yet
(I'm hoping the list archive will be up for November soon). If anyone
else sees a better way to keep the system in a consistent state during the
transition during the conversion I would be interested. However, my
concern about user-written programs accessing old directories should
probably be stressed. Even if debian can make the switch without a
problem, shouldn't we give the users a bit of time to adjust?
Comments/criticisms are more than welcome on this,
Brandon
P.S. I forgot to mention the remove process on the scripts I mentioned
before should undo the changes it makes. E.g. you convert your system,
discover the problem, uninstall the conversion package, and everything is
back to normal.
-----
Brandon Mitchell <bhmit1@mail.wm.edu> "We all know linux is great... it
PGP: finger -l bhmit1@cs.wm.edu does infinite loops in 5 seconds"
Phone: (757) 221-4847 --Linus Trovalds
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