Re: Summary of KDE filesystem discussion
On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 09:55:12AM +0200, Jarno Elonen wrote:
> It's that they grow /usr/bin quite a lot faster than any "conventional" unix
> tools and make it very hard to have multiple versions of the desktop on a
> same computer.
This is a deficiancy in the packaging system. It applies to all packages in
Debian, not only KDE or GNOME.
> Unlike libc5/libc6 for example, KDE for example consist of
> quite a few libraries and, what's worse, applications that are called from
> other applications and cannot thus be version numbered properly.
They can. If the KDE and GNOME people are too lazy to implement versioning
in their inter-process communication protocols, they should feel the whip :)
if that'll make them spurt.
The problem is that the authors and maintainers of these programs are eager
to deliver immature software to the public, without taking care of the
compatibility issues, which can be solved entirely by technical means (and
by some design up-front). This error should not be "undone" by another error
(like shuffling files around and stuff them away in a seperate directory).
If that is the only way to make it work for now, then of course it has to be
taken, but only under the premise that the _next_ version will be fixed so
that it can go into the main tree.
> My own view on this is that it's not good if you
> have to change the path settings. Therefore I think a good tradeof would be
> to have symlinks to for example /usr/kde/bin/qtcups/ (or even better IMHO,
> /usr/kde/qtcups/bin/). Moreover, /usr/kde could be symlink to either
> /usr/kde2.2 or /usr/kde3.
This is what GNU stow does, and you are invited to use it on your system.
Now, I happen to like GNU stow, but it is not the Debian packaging system.
> [BEGIN wild fantasy warning]
>
> Of course, it would be better if that could be easily changed per user, but
> unfortunately we can't(?) do a link like "-> /usr/$KDEVER/" on current
> filesystems. That could possibly be solved with a system like in
> java-compiler and java-vm packages, however. All the application symlinks
> would point to a single .sh which would then delegate, based on the link's
> name and an environment variable, bash to either /usr/kde2 or /usr/kde3. Of
> course, KDE is just an example.
If you want such wild fantasies to become true, you should take another look
at the GNU/Hurd. ;)
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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