Re: Theoretical APT question
On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:04:42 +0000
Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> wrote:
: Debian packages aren't relocatable, I'm afraid. Their maintainer
: scripts frequently contain absolute paths or call other utilities
: that expect certain absolute paths, and changing this would be a
: ginormous amount of effort that isn't likely to happen any time
: soon.
Bummer. I didn't want to mess with the base system libraries,
utilities, /bin, /sbin etc, just the optional software. I can
certainly see that basic systemic functionality requires a ridgid
sub/superstructure. I had hoped that a couple of additions to my
$PATH and a few symlinks would have solved the problem. It's the
configurable side that I wanted to be able to protect from system
upgrades - the same as my/home data. I don't like 'blanket' upgrades
where you've got to reconfigure many essential progs from scratch
again. Seems like such a waste of time.
: This isn't specific to apt; it's inherent in the structure of our
: current packaging scheme (so closer to dpkg than apt). Sorry.
Hmmm. Do you know if tarballs would suffer from the same problem?
This might be a good reason to experiment with LFS. Or not. Perhaps
I could remove the dpkg version of a prg, but install the tarball in
a /pkg directory using the -root /otherroot option on installpkg.
Have the best of both worlds so to speak. Apt for a base system,
tarballs for configurables. Add /pkg, /pkg/bin to $PATH, and so on.
Or would two package managers conflict do you think? Can a two
directory system work? Is /bin,/usr/bin, and /pkg/bin any different
from what we have now? I'd like to stick with apt if I can. :)
Checking the dpkg man page as you suggest, I find dpkg has similar
options with --root, --admindir and --instdir. Do these options
create a second 'root' directory or merely move complete /usr
functionality to /otherroot? In other words, do they create a one or
two directory system (/usr plus /otherroot) and will a two directory
system work?
: In the special case where you want to move *everything* to a
: particular tree, then you could use a chroot.
:
No not everything. /usr has become a catchall unforturnately.
Anyway I appreciate your comments. Thanks.
bill
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