[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> > The workaround, of course, is to do something like:
> >
> > % configure --prefix=$cwd/install
> >
> > but it would be nice if the configuration process at least detected
> > when you are trying to do an inline installation and warn you that it's
> > not going to work properly.
> >
> > I think this is the same stuff I said last time I complained about
> > this.
>
> Are inline installations common? I've never heard of them before.
> What if a package has the source of lib under lib, bin under bin, etc.
> There could quite easily be conflicts.
I don't know if they're common or not, but as an example, I have 31 addon
packages installed on my machine (a mixture of GNU and non-GNU stuff), and
they're all installed this way (except gcc, where I had to cheat a little).
The only directory I've found that's commonly part of the source tree is
"man", and it generally contains a bunch of .man files, and it doesn't cause
any problem for man1 and other subdirectories to be created beneath it.
It is true that any given package could have a conflict, so it's only a good
standard policy if you're willing to deviate from it every once in a while
and are careful to watch for when that's necessary.
> Using --prefix=$cwd/install doesn't seem a great hardship.
No, and I alluded to that above. What annoys me is that doing --prefix=$cwd
used to work, and now it doesn't (starting sometime between 0.22 and
0.28-pre7). nmh's directory structure did not change, just the installation
scripts did. Therefore, my comment that it'd be nice if it at least
detected that you're trying to install in a way that no longer works
properly and output a descriptive warning rather than just failing
mysteriously later on.
> Or alternatively, using GNU stow would allow multiple `installations' that
> could be switched between with ease. That's how I handle package
> updates of unknown quality (I don't mean nmh!). It also allows you to
> see what package a file under /usr/local belongs to.
>
> % ls -l /usr/local/bin/inc
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 local local 34 Nov 27 17:59 /usr/local/bin/inc ->
> ../stow/nmh-0.27-forgefrom/bin/inc
Thanks! I was not familiar with stow. Looks like it does automatically the
kind of stuff I've been doing manually with foreach loops and what not. The
fact that it has you install things under a known safe directory makes it a
better installation policy than my "inline" installations.
Since not everybody knows about this tool, however, I still think it'd be
nice if the nmh configuration process complained if you use
--prefix=<nmh_source_tree_root_dir>.
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Dan Harkless | To prevent SPAM contamination, please
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