Re: GNUstep and /usr/GNUstep...
Vincent Renardias <vincent@waw.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Christian Schwarz wrote:
> > So why are all these `desktop environments' designed so that they
> > _need_ to have everything in a single directory hierarchy? This looks
> > to me as they see themselves as `pure add-ons' to other operating
> > systems/
>
> GNUstep does not NEED to be in a single directory in order to work. It
> will just make it look weird compared with the other implementations
> (NeXTStep, Apple Rhapsody, Solaris, NT, ...)
>
> Also OPENSTEP _is_ an operating system add-on, the same way X11R6 is.
Indeed. While the current implementation of GNUstep for Unix is X11 based, in the future might there might be a standalone Display Ghostscript as replacement for X11.
> > distributions. Frankly speaking, this looks a bit like the `C:\WINDOWS'
> > approach: just add a new directory for your programs and you don't have
> > to worry about cooperation with other programs.
> >
> > In the next step, we'll see GNUstep add-on packages which also need to
> > install into C:\WINDOWS^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H/usr/GNUstep. Is this a nice
> > solution??
The strange thing is that this works nearly perfectly for NeXTstep. Maybe rpm/deb are just a cure for a design flaw in the Unix file layout ? :-) But I don't want to start a flame ware...
> X11 packages install themselves in /usr/X11R6/bin, /usr/X11R6/lib, ... Is
> it nicer?
You can't avoid running into this kind of problems with any hierarchical filesystem. You'll definitely have to decide which criterias you'll want to give the highest priority (i.e. put them nearest to the root). The strong point about FHS/FSSTND is distributing things across filesystems according to the criterias `host-dependency' and `need for writability'. GNUstep chose other priorities since their focus was a different one. The nice thing is that GNUstep apps therefore should not need any fancy postinst magic ;-)
Anybody interested in developing a multidimensional hierarchical file system ? Maybe I should have a closer look into BeOS...
Gregor
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