>Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 19:43:56 +0100
>From: Hubert Feyrer <Hubert.Feyrer@rz.uni-regensburg.de>
>
>On Jan 4,  1:21pm, Jesus M. Gonzalez wrote:
>> Subject: Re: Packages (Re: xntpd)

>> 	Of course, for building pkgs that strucutre is also usefull.
>> In fact, the directory of installation could (should?) be configurable
>> by the user installing the pkg. That way, somebody could put everithing
>> under /usr/local/mtools-2.0.7 (like Hubert), or under
>> /usr/local/install/mtools-2.0.7 (like me) or directly under
>> /usr/local (may be like you?). (So, maybe youcan go to the corner for
>> just 15 minutes or something... ;-) )

I myself prefer to just dump everything in /usr/local; but I can see
why others might prefer the /usr/local/<dir>/<pkg> method.  If I were
to use your method, I'd name the directory /usr/local/pkg instead of
/usr/local/install.

>I'd just *love* to be able to shift packages around just as i like, but
>unfortunately, this won't work. As an example, gcc i think has the path to it's
>spec-file and other things quite hard-compiled. :-(((

The symlink farm is the solution for this.  For example, compile gcc
2.7.2 with a prefix of /usr/local; then install it in
/usr/local/pkg/gcc-2.7.2 .  If you symlink /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib to
/usr/local/pkg/gcc-2.7.2/lib/gcc-lib, then gcc will be able to find
what it needs.  The actual location of the file (even over NFS) is
irrelevant as long as the symlink points to the right place.

Symlink maintenance could be automated if pkg_add were modified to
be able to create a symlink for each @cwd line in the package
description.

>That's also the reason why i'd really like to settle on one dir *very very
>soon*.

I was originally skeptical about the whole
/usr/local/install/... business.  I hate filesystem clutter, and it
reminded me of Linux before they imposed their filesystem hierarchy
standard.  But now, I think it may be the best solution.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>           http://www.shore.net/~mikel
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA       (eq (opinion 'ADI) (opinion 'mike)) -> nil