Buddha Buck wrote: > > Is there any particular reason (besides history and inertia) that > non-free and contrip packages aren't installed into /opt?
No, these two are quite strong enough :-) Jokes apart, I have already proposed this (for non-free only), but I was hit by the prevention that people has against /opt, because of the very bad use of it done by several vendors. The use of /opt proposed in FHS is quite good, and permit that division in three (vendor, sysadm and third parties) which is quite desiderable. > > On the one hand, we keep saying that "Debian" is main, and that contrib > and non-free aren't part of Debian. That would point to labelling > contrib and non-free as "add-on packages", which according to the FHS, > supposedly belong in /opt. I'm not so sure we were saying that 'contrib' is not part of debian. There were real and effective problems putting it on a CD because of the dependencies. But I agree that non-free belongs to /opt . dpkg would be very good in solving the feared environment pollution (by puting symlinks and/or wrappers in /opt/bin /opt/lib /opt/man etc.) > [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: > > Debian as not yet chosen to addopt FHS, and most of the discussions on > > FHS have made it clear that many developers don't want to adopt /opt > > for anything delivered by Debian. > > (This was as part of the discussion of where to place TETware, which > would like some separation from the rest of the installed filespace for > its own technical reasons). This discussion came out also when Andreas started packaging KDE, long time ago, and turned out in the usual flame, doubled by license problems :-) > > If we view non-free/contrib as being "delivered by Debian", then this > argument would go against putting non-free/contrib in /opt. We should stop considering that things packaged in .deb are "delivered by Debian". Also other people can (should) start packaging their own stuff in .deb , and providing a clear policy on how to do (installing under /opt) would be a service for the community. We should start packaging non-free stuff as an example. The ideal would be that people creating non-free programs will package them into /opt by themselves. But I don't hold my breath. I think in some case we have to drop the "official" DD hat and wear the hat of the "third party". > > I've gotten the impression that we want third-party add-on .deb > packages to use /opt. I think that by having non-free and contrib in > /opt, we would a) distinguish between what is "debian" and what isn't > "debian" more cleanly, and b) provide an example to other third-party > vendors as to how /opt should be handled on a Debian system. There was even a request from a commercial company to carry non-free in their ftp site, just to separate it from debian. I don't think it is good that "one" company hold it, but maybe the idea to separate debian mirrors and non-free mirrors is not so bad. apt permits this, so we can reconsider it. > > On a personal level, while I think that putting non-free/contrib into > /opt is the right solution, it would be a hardship for me as a user, > since I don't really have the space necessary to repartition my system > to include an /opt. > It doesn't have to be on a separate partition. If you have a single big root partition that would be fine as well. But if you have only a small root partition and no more free space in your disk (to create a new partition) a symlink to a place where you have room is just the same. cheers, fab
