Since I was on vacation, I am just picking up the thread now.
1) /usr/local vs /usr.
Without making religious wars, let me say that
if your /usr partition full, you want to install elsewhere.
Typically, there is enough space on /usr/local---or you can move
/usr/local to a different partition (/usr is *much* harder to move b/c
of its size).
Also, rpm is used on nonRH (or even nonlinux) systems. It is better
to comply with more general Unix practices than to adhoc (RH)
practice. Typically, an RH box is just part of a larger network of
machines, and then a rule that can be used on all machines is
favorable.
But: my rpm is relocatable, so you can specify any instroot you want
on the command line.
2) Installing latex files in the teTeX tree.
IMO, not a good idea. What if I have a TeX different from teteX?
What if my teTeX is installed in /usr/local? What if $TEXMF is
readonly NFS mounted (as in our department)?
(In my experience, it is not a good idea to install teTeX from an rpm.
teTeX has its own upgrading procedure, and it messes up rpm's verify.
Presently, teteX 1.0 has come out with bugfixes almost daily; no rpm
will keep up with it. Of course, your milage may vary).
What if I have a revtex.cls already? Which revtex.cls will be found
first? (It is another matter, that the teTeX FAQ does not recommend
putting the local additions in the main texmf tree; see also texmf.cnf
for TEXMFLOCAL).
If the lyx rpm very much wants to install the .cls files, the spec
file should be smarter: it should first find out the local value of
TEXMF (or better yet, the value of TEXMFLOCAL).
3) Simpler installation procedure.
This is what Kayvan wrote about his rpm. In what sense is this true?
I do
make install prefix=$DESTDIR/%{prefix}
(BTWY, I'd add `./configure --src' to Kayvan's rpm to configure lyx
for the local system).
So let us agree on what should be included in the rpm. If you decide
to have the .cls files installed, then it is better to have say Kayvan
maintain the rpm since I cannot test on my system. Otherwise, I will
be glad to maintain---but if somebody else wants to do it, that is
also fine with me.
Mate
