Re: Cross posting per request
Glenn Bily writes:
-> 1) Long awaited cleaning out of /usr/lib. In addition, categorizing
-> what is left into subdirectories.
This has a number of problems, namely:
1) Would require changes to binutils for linux that don't have to
happen on other systems. Too much work for too little gain.
2) violates the FSSTND
3) violates what most experienced UNIX users would expect
-> Other development packages could retain their own /usr/lib
-> subdirectories or more preferably build mini etc lib bin trees in
-> /usr/<package name>, /ap/<package name>, /usr/X11R6/<X package name>
-> directory. Such as:
I'm sure you mean /opt, not /ap :). /opt/<package>, if a program uses
it, gets all the config files for that package installed under it.
It's a SysV.4 thing, but a draft exists for using it under Linux.
-> Things like /usr/lib/perl, /usr/lib/terminfo, etc. need to be moved back
-> to /usr or /ap were it makes more sense.
Except for the fact that this is nonstandard and likely to make it
harder for people to go out, get a package, and compile it and drop it
in, since it makes Linux non-compatible with every other UNIX system
in existence.
-> What are the advantages this?
->
-> If someone chooses not to install development type packages then their
-> lib directories are not cluttered with libraries that make the directory
-> long and unmanagable.
One person's long and unmanagable is another's easy-to-find :)
Besides, how is the dynamic loader supposed to find shared libs if we
scatter them all over creation?
-> It great reduces confusion on the part of users and possibly developer
-> as to what libraries are where.
Only people who have never used any other UNIX system. I'm willing to
bet that most linux users either already have some UNIX experience or
are trying to become familiar with UNIX. No need to confuse people by
being rather gratuitously different from other UNIXes.
-> 2) Figuring out whether /usr/local is really being used properly (which
-> in my reading of FSSTND it isn't)
-> If /usr/local is really for local configuration then it shouldn't be in
-> /usr. /usr would typically be read-only mounted to a server in the cases
-> where /usr/local would be used. You cannot mount on read-only
-> partitions.
I think you're misunderstanding here... /usr/local is for local use.
In other words, /usr/local is where you put all the programs that you
download and compile yourself. They should probably be using config
files in /etc and runtime files in /var if necessary. "local
configuration" just means that it's up to the machine's sysadmin as to
how they want to set up and use /usr/local.
-> 5) If a startup shell script for window managers should also be easy to
-> add.
->
-> I think that the user should have the possibility of specifying the
-> window manager at the startx prompt such as:
->
-> startx fvwm
-> startx openwin
-> startx fvwm-95
->
This is what user configuration files are for. If you want a
different window manager , it's fairly easy to set up a .xsession and
have startx use it.
-> 6) The wisdom of put the contents of /etc/X11/xdm and /etc/X11/xinit
-> where they are needs to be re-evaluated.
-> Most of the files in these directories are shell scripts not
-> configuration files.
Actually, they kind of walk the fine line between configuration files
and shell scripts, since they are what you edit to configure X to do
what you want. So they're probably OK there, especially since if they
get put in /usr, they get a lot harder to configure if, as you
suggest, /usr is read only :)
-> 7) The configuration programs for /etc/printcap and the user maintaince
-> utilities from Redhat need to be lifted :)
Don't know what you mean by user maintenance, but a printer
configuration utility would definitely be a good thing. Who wants to
write it? :)
-Larry
--
Larry Daffner | Linux: Unleash the workstation in your PC!
vizzie@airmail.net / http://web2.airmail.net/vizzie/
The great tragedy of science, the slaying of a beautiful
theory by an ugly fact. --Thomas Henry Huxley
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