Subject: directory listings & lunix emulation
To: None <pkgsrc-users@netbsd.org>
From: oliver gould <ogould@cs.stevens.edu>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 09/18/2006 16:03:01
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Hello-

We are using suse_base-10.0 on NetBSD 2.1 to run various applications
(notably firefox) under lunix emulation.

`/usr/pkg/emul/linux/bin/ls /usr` lists the contents of the directory
/usr/pkg/emul/linux/usr.  This happens similarly for /bin, /dev, /var,
and so on.  However, listing '/' actually lists the filesystem's root.

This issue was come across when using firefox to browse through the
filesystem.  While /usr/people (where my home directory lives) and
/usr/pkg (where a PDF viewer lives instance) are accessible when either
path is explicitly specified, there is no way to browse the filesystem
as expected.

The compat_linux(8) manpage leads me to believe that this behavior is
intentional so that configuration files installed into
/usr/pkg/emul/linux are checked before their NetBSD counterparts.
However, this causes some very serious confusion for some of our users
who prefer the lunix binaries.  Rewriting absolute paths specified on
the command-line is extremely non-intuitive and, AFAICT, there is no way
to get an accurate listing of any directory that exists in both the root
FS and /usr/pkg/emul/linux.

Am I interpretting the rational behind this behavior currectly?  This
could probably be resolved on my end with a couple of symlinks, but it
seems to me that there must be a more graceful way to deal with this.

--=20
  .oliver

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