Subject: Re: pkg/7339: emulators/linux_lib missing two execs in PLIST
To: None <perry@piermont.com>
From: John Darrow <John.P.Darrow@wheaton.edu>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 04/08/1999 12:21:26
> 
> John Darrow <John.P.Darrow@wheaton.edu> writes:
> > Ah... I think I've tracked down the problem.
> > The version of communicator which the original package pulls down is 4.5,
> > exportable, from the ftp site.  The modified package uses 4.51, domestic.
> > One of the changes between Netscape's 4.5 and 4.51 tarballs when I built
> > the modified package was that Netscape removed the nls subdirectory.
> > Apparently, netscape still tries to open /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/nls.
> > Without the link in place, the first attempt done by our emul system
> > (the open in emul) fails, and since we don't include /usr/X11R6/lib/nls
> > in our X distribution, and since netscape's 4.51 tarballs no longer include
> > it (and, since our communicator/navigator packages will, inevitably,
> > move on to 4.51 or beyond, we can't rely on the tarballs containing said
> > directory), netscape crashes.
> 
> I don't understand what good these symlinks are supposed to be doing,
> though. Your explanation doesn't make any sense to me. The symlinks
> would only cause netscape to look first in a directory that it would
> end up looking in later anyway because of the way the emulation
> works.
> 
> Perry
> 

No, netscape tries to look in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11.  The linux_lib package
installs files in (under /emul/linux, of course) /var/X11R6/lib/X11 (note,
_var_, not _usr_).  Apparently, whatever version of linux we decided to
emulate with our linux_lib package puts the X11R6/lib/X11 directory under
var and not usr.  But some linux binaries, like netscape, want to find
it under usr.  Thus the symlinks.  And if linux versions are inconsistent
in where they put this directory, then we definitely need the symlinks.

jdarrow

--
John Darrow
Computing Services, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL
John.P.Darrow@wheaton.edu