On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 03:06:32PM -0800, Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Soren S. Jorvang wrote:
> 
> > I think
> > it is fine making sure that this scheme works fully with the pkg
> > system, but I would prefer not having it be the default.
> 
> It seems to me we might be going a little in the wrong direction
> here. You seem, from reading this, to be indicating that your personal
> preference is to have packages separate, which is not hard for you to
> do either way. (Just mkdir /usr/pkg when you do a system install.)

It is indeed my personal preference, but I would also advise against
it in the general case.

> What I'm asking is, do you think first-time users (those that have
> never used NetBSD before, such as converting Linux users), should
> see them separate? And if so, what advantage are they going to gain
> from it to offset their confusion at the difference?

Yes. They gain a much cleaner system, which converts may or may not
appreciate, and they gain the ability to do "heavy-handed" stuff
like blowing away /usr/pkg without affecting the basic integrity of
the 'system'.

The POLA issue is being able to type 'netscape' in an xterm after
a default install and have it work. Making this work is merely
a question of setting friendly defaults for execution, header and
library search paths.

I think converts are likely to be fleeing from an ever-growing
c:\windows directory.


-- 
Soren