On Friday 28 November 2003 16:01, Florian Schmidt wrote: > On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:39:31 -0600 > > Billy Biggs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It's really awkward that autoconf-based tools default to /usr/local > > since many users of my applications often use it and end up with > > non-FHS compliant silly directories like /usr/local/etc and > > /usr/local/var which should never exist. Putting everything under > > $PREFIX is really a compromise by the autoconf folks, and using > > /usr/local seems to be another compromise partly to help separate GNU > > stuff from native stuff(think installing bash on a Solaris machine). > > I acyually like it this way. In debian, at least, no package will ever > install anything to /usr/local, so installing stuff to /usr/local will > at least garantee to not confuse the package management system. >
but confuse the user: Common situation. new cool amazing program/version is out, we download it, no packages yet so we compile and it goes to /usr/local. Some months later someone packaged it and the user says "good i can apt-get it" and the program installs in /usr, while the old one is in /usr/local. Result: new program doesnt work, as /usr/local has priority, and the user is confused. He probably just removed the sources as they were taking space and cant -or doesnt know- about make uninstall. as paul says, opt/ is a fine solution for this, as everything just symlinks, but it's sad that it never took off. Cheers Juan Linietsky
