Re: [gentoo-dev] Multiple kdelibs

[Nathaniel Grady]

I think there are probably binary name colisions between various kde versions, not just libraries. For example kdm? I havn't actually verified this as i don't actually have >1 version of kde at the moment but didn't kde-1.x have kdm as well kde-2? Despite what the LHS sais I've very partial to /opt/kdeX scheme. All apps compiled against *that* kde version should go into that version so if you have apps of the same name copiled against different versions of kde you'll always get the right one. When I used to use LFS I did someting like this (like 2 summers ago) because I had apps that were never ported to kde2 that I still used... While probably the least effective argument it's also the most convient for developers because they can from a shell script set KDEDIR, PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc in a terminal to be for a differnt version of kde than they're actually using... I think a scheme similar to this was published on kde's websight (or maybe it was just a mailing list - memory fuzy) that suggested this scheme. Just run a shell script in your terminal called "kde1" before running a kde1 program if you used kde2 by default, or vice versa.

Maybe someone should write one of the LFS people and ask if they had thoughts on how distros were to deal with this issue and / or make them aware that /opt/kdeX and /opt/gnomeX and the like maybe are a better idea than "put everying in /usr"? 

I really always thought life would be eaiser if someting like java's namespace was adopted - put everying in /prefix/org.kde/kde-1.0.0/ or some such? which again in a somewhat less explicit function i tend to do when hand-compiling. i know the argument that a package manager is supposed to keep track of files so you don't have to put everying in it's own directory, but i think the multiple-version thing is an equally important issue. Is there an official rational for not wanting each program or each groups's program in it's own tree? I guess searching a lot of different dirs for libs/binaries might take a while but don't those get cashed in a hash somewhere anyway? I'll freely admit that I'm heavly biased by the way i always did everying in unix (which mostly was a backlash from windows strewing stuff everywhere / a lack of respect for package managemnt) :)

Just my 2 cents :)

--Nate Grady