Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Jim Ramsay <lack@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] A major change coming in the rox packages
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 17:08:31
Message-Id: 20070208110507.5d5e6ac7@sed-192.sedsystems.ca
1 I am planning on moving the install locations of all the rox-base/* and
2 rox-extra/* applications from their current location (/usr/lib/rox) to
3 something a little more FHS-correct[1] and tolerant of multilib support.
4
5 The main reason for this change is that I got a bug from amd64 because
6 the /usr/lib path is hard-coded all over the place (ie, not multilib
7 compliant), but it's always sort of bugged me that these packages are
8 in /usr/lib - They're not actually libaries (except for rox-clib).
9 These rox applications are a new special case that don't fit into the
10 FHS, called "Application Directories"[2], and I need a good place to
11 put them.
12
13 Please note that every rox application creates a symlink in /usr/bin
14 which runs the application regardless of where it exists in the
15 filesystem, so from an end-user perspective this doesn't really
16 matter. (Except a small bit of migration when I actually do move these
17 packages, which will be the topic for another day).
18
19 I'd like input from any interested parties on where the proper
20 location may be. Here are some ideas with their justifications and
21 problems, as I see them:
22
23 /usr/libexec/rox - libexec isn't actually in the FHS (that I could
24 see), and /usr/libexec is usually assumed to contain executable
25 code, so it may be a "safe" place to put things. That said, libexec
26 is considered by some to be dead or about to disappear[3], so it may
27 not be the right place to go.
28
29 /usr/rox - This isn't in the FHS either, I would be creating it. The
30 problem is that the FHS specifically says "Large software packages
31 must not use a direct subdirectory under the /usr hierarchy."
32
33 /opt/rox - This is FHS-safe, but the gentoo convention is to
34 reserve /opt for binary packages only, and these appdirs are not.
35
36 /usr/bin/rox-desktop - This may be the most correct, since the FHS
37 does allow subdirectories here, and doesn't explicitly prohibit new
38 ones. Also, these are actually executable commands. The problem is
39 that (at least considering my currently installed packages) no one
40 else has created any subdirectories in /usr/bin. I don't know if
41 that's a problem. Also, I can't use the name 'rox' in this place
42 because that conflicts with a filename from rox-base/rox.
43
44 I'm currently tending toward one of the last two, but am open to
45 suggestions to persuade me toward or away from any of these, or
46 any other, better suggestion.
47
48 Inside this new location I will be further reorganizing the packages so
49 most apps will be inside an 'Apps' subdirectory of this new location,
50 and rox-lib will be in a 'lib' subdirectory.
51
52 Now, one last thing to consider is rox-clib, which is actually a C
53 library. However, thanks to the way rox software works with application
54 directories, it doesn't need to be in the normal library search
55 path at all to function properly. I think that it would make
56 sense then for me to also take it out of /usr/lib altogether, and
57 instead put it alongside rox-lib in the new location. It already has
58 an internal directory structure that provides a unique location for any
59 32- versus 64-bit versions of itself.
60
61 Thanks for your help!
62
63 [1] http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
64 [2] http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/AppDirs
65 [3] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/44751 (and others)
66
67 --
68 Jim Ramsay
69 Gentoo/Linux Developer (rox)

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Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] A major change coming in the rox packages "Thomas Rösner" <Thomas.Roesner@××××××××××××××.de>
Re: [gentoo-dev] A major change coming in the rox packages Ed Catmur <ed@×××××××××.uk>