On Tuesday 15 January 2002 7:58 pm, Oliver Johns wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 January 2002 11:07 am, Daniel Stone wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 07:20:08PM +0100, Jens Benecke wrote:
<snip>
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > actually, why doesn't Debian go the /opt/kde3 or /usr/kde3
> > > way, like other distributions? E.g. SuSE has had absolutely
> > > no problems providing KDE3 beta RPMs for all users which
> > > don't interfere with the KDE2 setup at all, because they use
> > > /opt/kde{2,3} and ~/.kde2, ~/.kde3 subdirs etc..
> > >
> > > The only argument from Debian people I've heard so far is
> > > that it is 'evil'.
> >
> > And HEINOUSLY violates that little "policy" thing of ours that
> > no-one cares about. You put your own stuff in /opt/kde[23],
> > that's what it's for - your *own* stuff. For packagers, it's
> > another /usr/local - touch and burn. Also, in general, putting
> > random subdirs under /usr is exceedingly bad practice, and it
> > also violates that little policy thing. (Bear in mind that the
> > FHS is also policy).
>
> The Debian policy is violated, in principle anyhow,
> by the whole X-windows system. It DOES have its own special
> subdirectories. The reason is that it is so large and
> complicated that good sense demands putting it in a special
> place to make it easier to keep track of it. The real question
> is whether kde and gnome have now reached that status. I think
> they have. For one thing, people who use both kde and gnome
> experience trouble knowing which app or which library or shared
> file belongs to which. It would be VERY helpful, and quite
> rational, for Debian to follow, or even one-up, the other dists
> and treat BOTH of those two mega-systems specially.
>
> Does the Debian policy ever change?
Yes ;) its on version 3.5.6.0 now so there must have been some before that,
but this isn't really the mailing list for discussing it - I was considering
putting it to the debian-policy list, but then I did my research...
Personally I'm in favour of moving KDE (and GNOME) to more logical places
such as /opt/kde2. To quote the FHS:
The directories /opt/bin, /opt/doc, /opt/include, /opt/info, /opt/lib,
and /opt/man are reserved for local system administrator use. Packages
may provide "front-end" files intended to be placed in (by linking or
copying) these reserved directories by the local system administrator,
but must function normally in the absence of these reserved
directories.
Programs to be invoked by users must be located in the directory
/opt/<package>/bin.
<snip>
So in fact /opt/kde2 would not be reserved for local sysadmins, only /opt
itself and the specified subdirs are in the style of /usr/local. Continuing:
Distributions may install software in /opt, but must not modify or
delete software installed by the local system administrator without the
assent of the local system administrator.
(Filesystem heirarchy standard, Version 2.2 final, section 3.12.2)
So I'm afraid it's wrong to say a move to /opt/kde violates debian policy,
since it's in accordance with FHS.
I'm supported also by Mosfet, see www.mosfet.org/fss.html for an actual
argument for why directory layout should be more logical.
Many thanks
James
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) quoted above is available from
http://www.pathname.com/fhs
