Since Debian package names must already be unique, we ought to be able to leverage that to avoid having to fight over which package gets to claim which binary name.
What about making it into a user's install-time decision, rather than a developer's packaging-time decision? As a proof of concept, I copied each package's binaries on my machine into /opt/<package>/bin/. Then I union-mounted all these /opt/*/bin directories into a single /ubin (for "unified /bin"), and set my PATH to just that. I've been using it (lightly) for a couple of days without problems. I just union-mounted them in alphabetical order, but in the case of conflicts it would be easy to use a site-specific prioritization, analagous to mailcap.order, to control the shadowing. My apologies if this has already been proposed and rejected before. Cheers, Eric -- Eric Cooper e c c @ c m u . e d u -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140708153112.gb30...@google.com
