On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:50:12 PDT UNIX admin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You see, if you don't care about guaranteeing the above, then you
might as well go and just stuff everything in /usr; but if the
software *isn't* yours, like in the case of OpenSolaris, and your
policy is to guarantee stability, then you can't just go and stuff
software from someone else into /usr, because it might break other
things and might bust your customers and/or consumers.
Right. Cramming things that aren't part of your distribution into /usr
is simply *wrong*. The GNU/Linux systems declaring that everything
belongs to their distribution makes life hard on anyone who wants
either a stable system, or to run more recent tools than they provide
with their systems. Third party software on a modern GNU/Linux system
is damn near impossible to do sanely.
And that is *not* what I'm advocating.
> And for Solaris, such practice is simply unacceptable. And as long
as that remains the case, Solaris will have people like myself on
his side.
The problem with the various existing opensolaris optional software
repositories is that there's no way to predict where executable are
going to land - even if you restrict yourself to one
repository. Sometimes it lands in /opt/<rep>/bin; sometimes it lands
in /opt/<rep>/<pkg>/bin, or even in /opt/<rep>/bin/<pkg> (s/bin/<foo>/
as appropriate).
While this made sense when the SVID was written 20 years ago, the norm
is longer boxes with thousands of users and hundreds of simultaneous
logins and most people having access to one or maybe two of those so
you wound up installing all the software to make all those people
happy. Instead we have boxes - some virtual - that are dedicated to a
single purpose or user, and most users have one (or more) unix boxes
on their desk and laptop and etc, and each only has the software
dedicated to it's purpose.
What I'm advocating is that the optional software be flat. Not in
/usr, but in /opt/<repo>. Ideally, there's a single repository that's
blessed that can claim /opt, but that's a different issue.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.
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