Re: Latex/Tex / dpkg remark
On Mon, 14 Feb 1994, Sunando Sen wrote:
> James A. Robinson writes:
>
> >
> > On solaris /opt is for local packages, sounds an awfull lot /usr/local
> > to me.
>
> I have no idea what Solaris does, but I thought the purpose of
> /usr/opt was to hold optional packages of the distribution.
> /usr/local might be for anything else that you might personally
> download (or write) and install. Thus, for, our purpose, everything
> currently in debian except for emacs and TeX could be considered
> optional. I know this is rather vague, but, for example, elm, smail,
> and the tcpip packages should be considered part of the base
> distribution, even though you may choose not to install it. This
> definition of the `base distribution' roughly corresponds to what you
> would get with a brand new Unix workstation.
I think Sun's intention with /opt was to help keep separate the original
filesystems and optional software. Something we shouldn't forget is that
one of the key features of Debian is the packaging system, which makes
it a snap to uninstall a package, even if it has config files littered
over three disks and several filesystems. Hence, I don't think we need
an /opt or a /usr/opt. Besides, it would just mean more symlinks anyway.
> > I also don't think that /usr/local should be touched by the debian
> > release, but if the generated files start AFTER you have installed,
> > and are working, I don't see the problem.
I agree with this. Technically speaking, /usr/local doesn't have to
exist (namewise), so I think it would be a bad idea to make assumptions
about its existence. This is not to say that /usr/local shouldn't be
a default for local stuff, just that the pathnames should be somewhat
easily configurable...
jonathan
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