Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Alec Warner <antarus@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] reorganization of /var/lib gentoo-related files
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:10:47
Message-Id: b41005390901052010l1b32290al4777d1b3956715f@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] reorganization of /var/lib gentoo-related files by Luca Barbato
1 On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@g.o> wrote:
2 > Fabio Rossi wrote:
3 >>
4 >> I'm proposing to reorganize the files related to Gentoo inside /var/lib.
5 >> Currently we have this situation (at least on my system):
6 >>
7 >> /var/lib/eselect
8 >> /var/lib/gentoo/enews
9 >> /var/lib/herdstat/
10 >> /var/lib/module-rebuild
11 >> /var/lib/portage
12 >>
13 >> The main dir should be something like /var/lib/gentoo, so I'd see all
14 >> gentoo-related files as
15 >>
16 >> /var/lib/gentoo/eselect
17 >> /var/lib/gentoo/enews
18 >> /var/lib/gentoo/herdstat/
19 >> /var/lib/gentoo/module-rebuild
20 >> /var/lib/gentoo/portage
21 >>
22 >> What do you think about?
23 >
24 > Looks quite wrong. I'd do /var/lib/gentoo/enews -> /var/lib/enews btw
25
26 A few things, mostly relating to trying to convince me to fix this
27 (being open source, you could easily fix it yourself).
28
29 1) There is no right or wrong place to put data, specifically if we
30 state that we do not follow standards (like the FHS) that may in fact
31 make specific recommendations, and we have done so in the past.
32
33 2) There is not a real problem (technically) with the current
34 placement, aside from some people think it is odd. I am unaware of
35 users that are trying to put /var/lib/ on an NFS mount but can't
36 because of our scheme; or other ideas for which the current scheme
37 limits users.
38
39 3) Moving is costly.
40 - We have to author code to migrate existing news repositories
41 - We have to author code to check both places (at a minimum, to
42 migrate the old repository, possibly at runtime, or to warn them of
43 the old repository)
44 - How long will this code remain in the codebase (forever?)
45
46 4) The benefits are slim.
47 - /var/lib is more orderly for a subset of users.
48 - What else?
49
50 The point is we make decisions all the time and some of them are bad
51 and are expensive to fix and we have to live with them.
52
53 The location was actually specified in the GLEP[1] so part of me asks
54 why this was not brought up then (it was a design defect; and not an
55 implementation defect). Data from software engineers tends to show
56 that defects in the design phase that are caught in the maintenance
57 phase tend to be very expensive to fix and I think there are bigger
58 fish to fry in the package manager world; but feel free to send a
59 patch as always (this is OSS after all).
60
61 [1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0042.html#client-side
62
63 >
64 > lu
65 >
66 > --
67 >
68 > Luca Barbato
69 > Gentoo Council Member
70 > Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
71 > http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero
72 >
73 >
74 >