Re: [MiNT] Sparemint and FHS

[Guido Flohr <gufl0000@stud.uni-sb.de>]

Hi,

On Thu, Sep 09, 1999 at 07:53:11PM +0200, Michael Schwingen wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 08:26:08PM +0200, Maurits van de Kamp wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, but that also means changing the wtmp/utmp FORMAT. I fully agree that
> > it should stay on it's old location as long as the old format is used.
> 
> Correct. In the case of utmp/wtmp, I agree that it makes sense to change
> format and location at the same time.

:-)
Finally.

> However, in the case of man and other paths, it should be easiest to do it
> right the first time a new package is built in RPM format, since that way
> there will never be a transition.

Yes, there *is* a transition: I install rpms over existing KGMD 
packages.  It has some advantages to overwrite as many KGMD files
as possible, thus letting rpm take control over them.  If
/usr/man/man1/ls.1.gz is an "rpm file" then a later update of the
fileutils will remove it before installing /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz.
Without the intermediate step we would possibly leave debris.

Honestly, this was not intended but it is a positive side effect.  On the
other hand, as far as I remember, KGMD *did* use /usr/share/man and that
had caused me a lot of problems in the early days because its usage was
inconsistent (I remember that I had trouble running makewhatis).

There are already a lot of little things you have to remember and take
care of when building Sparemint packages, for example to allow the
buildsite script to properly generate the html descriptions and create
correct links.  Do we absolutely have to impose more difficulties now?

The path for manpages has only little significance for me.  I you have a
close look that the more important paths have already been changed.  You
won't find a single package that installs files in /usr/etc or /usr/ucb,
the user mailboxes have moved from /var/spool/mail to /var/mail (although
I personally prefer mail directories in $HOME), ...

Finally, I must admit that I don't consider it a good idea to put manpages
into /usr/share because they are not sharable (at least not across
platforms).  I haven't lost my hope that the FHS folks will see that point
some day (and think of a better solution).

Ciao

Guido
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