Subject: Re: Installation of additional software
To: Jesus M. Gonzalez <jgb@ordago.uc3m.es>
From: Hubert Feyrer <Hubert.Feyrer@rz.uni-regensburg.de>
List: current-users
Date: 09/13/1994 11:38:42
> 	We keep binaries in separate directories under /usr/local/installed.
> We make links from /usr/local/bin, and sometimes from /usr/local/lib.
> For man we are currently using MANPATH.

I guess linking to /usr/local/man would be ok, too. :)


> > So, what method should be used for the (de)installation of all
> > the additional precompiled software-packages?
> 
> 	We are thinking about a tool that reads a list of files and 
> make links to them from /usr/local/bin or whatever. The same
> list can be used to deinstall (just by deleting the links and the
> dir). If you lost the list, you can do it easily by hand: you have
> only well defined places to look at. And at worst, you can get a couple
> of dangling symlinks... Using that in combination with /usr/general
> (e.g., placing man pages under /usr/general/installed/package_name/man)
> can help when you have lots of architectures.

I've written such an install-script. You tell it which binaries,
man-pages, etc. to install, and it will link them from the
"package-private" directory (/usr/general, or whatever) into a
"public" directory (/usr/local/bin, .../man, ...).

If you're interrested in the script (there's alsoa uninstall-script),
you can get it on ftp.uni-regensburg.de (the inofficial main site for
NetBSD/amiga) in /pub/NetBSD-Amiga/contrib/EasyInstall-1.0.tar.gz. To
read the README, type: "sed s,/opt,/usr/local,g README | more" (As I
thought of using another directory for placing packages, I adopted
SVR4's /opt system, and got heavy flames for calling it so... maybe
/usr/general is just better? ;-)


> 	I also agree with that. I think we need binary repositories for
> casual users, and for all of thay don't wanting to bother with compilations
> and such... That is one of the best things of Linux, I think. And that
> is a place where we, the non-kernel-hackers can help.

Sure as hell true. We've even started putting up such a reprository
for NetBSD/amiga on ftp.uni-regensburg.de, but right now it's rather a
throw-together of some tar-archives, with different packages using
different install-methods, -directories, etc.

Besides that, I've got a perl-based adduser/deluser-script, which
could be used to simplify adding users. If someone is interrested in
it, leave me a note and I'll put it up.

Hubert

=============== Hubert Feyrer ============================================
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