LSB and FHS (was Re: [Gllug] tar.gz)

[Nix]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, Simon Stewart stipulated:
> On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 04:15:53PM +0000, tet at accucard.com wrote:
>> My take on it is that anything vendor supplied should go in the main
>> tree, whereas third party software (e.g., Oracle, WordPerfect, etc.)
>> should go in /opt. Some distributions (e.g., SuSE, IIRC) make an
>> arbitrary decision to put some packages into /opt. IMHO, that's the
>> wrong decision, but no doubt they have their reasons.

More to the point, software (usually commercial) that requires its own
horrible non-Unixlike trees and can't be forced into a Unixy mould
should get stuffed into /opt. (The JDK is a good example of this.)

> But then you get places like /usr/bin turning into an absolute pit
> because distros tend to supply so much software now. For example, my

Who cares if /usr/bin is full? It's a universal catalogue of all
binaries...

> Debian box has about 1976 different programs either there or linked to
> from there.

(1930 on this box)

>             The /opt tree is meant to be a lot more structured, which
> makes the box a touch easier to admin, and lets you see at a glance
> which files belong with which application.

Why not use GNU stow and the /usr/local / /usr/local/stow trees for
this? (Debian even *provides* a /usr/local/stow directory for this
purpose!)

Plus, dpkg -L is your friend.

> Part of the problem is that stuff like KDE and Gnome like to store
> their binaries there too, whereas my instinct is that they really
> should be /opt. As is yours, reading your email again. :)

Absolutely not the case, IMNSHO. KDE and GNOME are supplied by the
distributor and fit into a Unixlike directory hierarachy, so they should
go in /usr. (In fact, parts of GNOME (and perhaps KDE) break if their
applications can't see each other in a consistent place, like /usr.)

> As an aside, where would you put Oracle if it was shipped as part of a
> base RedHat install, as is being mooted?

Pass. It's so huge you'd have to think about it carefully. /opt is a
last resort, though.

-- 
`However, if you want to detect whether (say, 1 in 1000) cars are being
 abducted by bunnies along their route, you've got a whole new problem.'
                              - Scott James Remnant on network problems

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