On Thu, 20 Mar 1997 18:56:17 +0100 (MET) 
 "Jesus M. Gonzalez" <jgb@gsyc.inf.uc3m.es> wrote:

 > 
 > 	One of the greater problems of binary packages is that they
 > use to be `fascists' with respect to where they are installed.

...often, this can't be helped.  Programs usually have pathnames
hard-coded at compile time, reasons range from "didn't bother
to write a config file parser" (begging the question of where the
confif file goes :-) to "security".

When you're installing binary packages, IMO, you should live
with the pathnames that the package wants to use (noting that
they should be well-documented in the accompanying README or
whatever).  If you want to change it, use the source flavor,
if possible.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939