Subject: Re: FHS (Was: Re: Submitting .deb packages to the archive)

From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:02:54 +0200

Richard G. Roberto writes:

 > > 
 > > 1. Debian follows the Linux filesystem standard (aka FSSTND)
 > > 
 > > 2. The FSSTND says:
 > >  a) No /opt
 > 
 > The FSSTND has been renamed to FHS!
 > 
 > ftp://ftp.caldera.com/pub/mirrors/tsx-11/docs/linux-standards/private/fsstnd/draft5.tar.gz

If I understand the (alpha) FHS specifications rightly, one cannot do
things like

	/usr/bin/something -> /opt/package/bin/anything

but should put something in /opt/bin? This is fine for binaries (one could
expect init to add /opt/bin in its path or this may be done in the shells
environment setup) but then there is need to have manual readers track
/opt/man too, compilers look into /opt/include, etc... Is this really the
intent? And what about having shared files under /opt with locally understood
binaries/libraries only in bin/lib? Symlinks?

Yves.

---

From: Richard Kettlewell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 96 12:19:07 +0100 (BST)

>/opt/man too, compilers look into /opt/include, etc...

I don't see the problem with this - most such things already look in
both /usr/<foo> and /usr/local/<foo>, so adding /opt/<foo> shouldn't
be particularly traumatic.

It's a while since I've looked at what the FHS says about /opt, tho...

- Richard

---

From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)
Date: 12 Jul 1996 20:45:00 +0200

[email-masked] (Yves Arrouye)  wrote on 11.07.96 in <[email-masked]>:

> intent? And what about having shared files under /opt with locally

man should look into /opt/bla/man iff you have /opt/bla/bin in your PATH,  
IMHO. gcc should probably use -I/opt/bla/include.

Of course, you can always have a different local policy (and matching  
configuration).

> understood binaries/libraries only in bin/lib? Symlinks?

I don't understand that bit.

> Yves.

However, there is one important point here: the FHS, together with the  
part about /opt, is a *draft*.

That's for a reason: it's not quite ready yet.

That doesn't mean you can't use it. It does mean, however, that it may  
still change on you.

And I don't think Debian in general should start to use the FHS draft  
instead of the current FSSTND, except if that's a general decision for the  
distribution. Using part of one and part of the other would be confusing;  
people would not know what to expect.

(On the other hand, it certainly won't be a bad idea to look at the FHS  
draft and be prepared for things to come.)

MfG Kai