Re: [forward] FHS pre-2.1 draft #3 on web site

[Chris Waters <xtifr@dsp.net>]

Raul Miller <raul@usatoday.com> writes:

> FHS 2.0 specifies the following directories:

> /opt/bin
> /opt/doc
> /opt/include
> /opt/info
> /opt/lib
> /opt/man

Well, 2.0 and the 2.1 both say that these dirs are a) reserved for
local sysadmin use, and, more importantly, b) packages "shall function
normally in the absence of these reserved directories."

That last phrase is particularly telling, IMO.  The absence of the
*directories*, not of their contents.  This implies to me that the
directories are *not* required to exist, merely reserved as names for
the local sysadmin.

Also, these directories are *not* listed one per line as Raul shows
them -- whereas, all *required* directories *are* listed one per line
at some point in the standard.  This part of Raul's post confused me,
and made me have to go look at the actual text of the FHS.  The fact
that these directories are merely referred to in the descriptive text
makes me doubly sure that they are not required.

> /etc/opt
> /var/opt

The case against these isn't quite as strong, but I see no actual
requirement to add them.  And, in the section on /var, I see:

   "The cache, lock, log, run, spool, state, and tmp directories must
   be included and used in all distributions; the account, crash,
   games, mail, and yp directories must be included and used if the
   corresponding applications or features are provided in the
   distribution."

No mention of 'opt' there.

Daniel (though he may hate me for having left him on the cc list) is
probably better qualified to comment on these points than I.
*Personally*, I neither need nor want any of these extra directories
on my system, but whatever..... :-)

cheers
-- 
Chris Waters   xtifr@dsp.net | I have a truly elegant proof of the
      or    xtifr@debian.org | above, but it is too long to fit into
http://www.dsp.net/xtifr     | this .signature file.