More on genttoo + fhs

[dep]

begin  Collins's  quote:

| Not surprisingly, no one at gentoo is interested in "stomping all
| over the fhs,", as alleged earlier.

so they do it while bored. they are clearly flinging down and dancing 
upon the fhs.

| 1) gentoo has made a conscious effort to structure their distro
| according to the fhs, including making changes to remove things
| like kde from /opt because they were told that was not allowed.

then they were told that by someone so full of it that he has to shave 
the mushrooms off in the morning. from fhs 2.2:

"Programs to be invoked by users must be located in the directory 
/opt/<package>/bin. If the package includes UNIX manual pages, they 
must be located in /opt/<package>/man and the same substructure as 
/usr/share/man must be used. . . .

"Distributions may install software in /opt, but must not modify or 
delete software installed by the local system administrator without 
the assent of the local system administrator. . . .

"*Large software packages must not use a direct subdirectory under the 
/usr hierarchy.* . . . (emphasis mine.)

"An exception is made for the X Window System because of considerable 
precedent and widely-accepted practice."

so, if someone told gentoo that packages were not allowed in /opt but 
are allowed in their own subdirectories in /usr, as gentoo packages 
them, then that someone was speaking out his post-processing 
cakehole.

| 2) The fhs does not really provide a very good (or any, IMO)
| solution for large packages with multiple, incompatible versions
| and other dependancies.

absolutely untrue. see above. or, actually, read the whole fhs. it's 
at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/

| 3) It's not a good idea (per gentoo) to have products in the /usr
| hierarchy dependant on products in the /opt hierarchy and vice
| versa, as would be the case with both kde and gnome offerings,
| since many simple packages that are installed in the /usr hierarchy
| depend on either kde or gnome.

(per gentoo) might as well be (per the gas our old mare most recently 
passed) insofar as the discussion is concerned. such packages belong 
in /opt.

| 4) Gentoo believes that they have a very workable comprimise.

i'm sure they do, but what they believe they have done is not a 
compromise in that there is no reason for it. they just decided to do 
it another way. 

| 5) Following the fhs is infinitely more complex and frustrating
| than dep would have you believe.

it's not even vaguely complex. 

| 6) gentoo would love to have someone with greater understanding of
| the fhs make concrete suggestions for improvements in this respect.

well, good. now you have greater understanding of the fhs. though you 
might simply provide them the link above, which would allow them to 
read the damned thing for themselves.
-- 
dep

http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the 
envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.