Re: [MiNT] Sparemint and FHS

[Martin-Eric Racine <q-funk@pp.fishpool.fi>]

> > Several docs on your site imply FHS compliance, even though
> > most packages follow the older FSSTND standard.  

Since you're following FSSTND, then please mention that or Red Hat,
not FHS, in your docs.

> Anybody who cares to make existing Sparemint packages FHS
> compliant is welcome to do so.  But please keep it consistent.
> Inconsistency is the main reason why Sparemint (and Redhat
> Linux, SuSe Linux AFAIK, Slackware, NetBSD, FreeBSD, ...)
> is not yet FHS compliant.

Making every SpareMiNT package FHS _from_the_start_ would avoid 
the pitfalls those other platform are experiencing, while keeping 
old locations and attempting to upgrade later leads to chaos.

> Take your manpage example: If you want to put manpages into
> /usr/share/man and not /usr/man, you also have to take care
> that all manual readers actually search that directory for
> manual pages.

/etc/man.config is all there is to change. I did and it works.
Then, move all mans to /usr/share/man and pray you won't encounter
a new sparemint which attempts to force its man pages to the old
location....

> Assuring this would mean that we would have to modify a lot of 
> other packages, too, like startup scripts, user home directory 
> skeletons, shell init files ... Most of these packages have not 
> even been built.

Which is the whole point:  if you're gonna build them from scratch,
build them with the new paths, not the old one.  Fix it _ONCE_.

> Another point: utmp and wtmp files.  Yes, speaking with FHS
> they are currently mislocated.  Who cares?  They are not
> human-readable, programs have to find them.  

And find them they do not:  'who' cannot tell who is logged in, 
ToswinII cannot write the login info, etc. etc.   Need I go on?

> fact that there are very many programs that have to be changed
> at once, including programs that we don't have the sources

That's the whole idea:  as you (re)build programs for Sparemint,
fix the paths and make it use <paths.h> as much as possible.

> agree on a new format for utmp files.  Changing the location
> of them now would be stupid in my opinion, because that
> would lead to chaos.

Again, why do you think other Unices are so slow in upgrading?
They have litterally thousands of applications to upgrade; we
only have a few hundreds, and are currently revising them, so
now is the best time to upgrade.

> I would really prefer not to lead that FHS discussion again.
> So, can we stop that discussion?

Sure, whatever.  Suit yourself.

I _will_ indeed use the RPM port, as recommended, but hereby
declare my distribution Debianized:  anything I will release
uses FHS pathnames.

-- 
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Martin-Éric Racine            The Atari Stacy and TT030 Homepage
Lappeenranta, Finland          http://members.tripod.com/~TT030/
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