[linux-audio-dev] Tracker

[Juan Linietsky]

On Friday 28 November 2003 16:01, Florian Schmidt wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:39:31 -0600
>
> Billy Biggs <vektor at dumbterm.net> 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