Am Fri, 28. Aug 2009 um 22:50:50 +0200 schrieb Fons Adriaensen:
Hi Fons,
But while I can clearly see the use and even necessity
for $DESTIR
for someone who is creating a binary package from a source package
(without having to really install that package locally), what on
earth is the purpose of forcing someone who installs from source
to go via such an intermediate step ?
DESTDIR usage is only for building packages; there is no purpose for
someone bypassing his packaging system and installing it directly from
source to use this variable. But this procedure may be unhealthy.
If the Makefile provides a
working 'make install' why complicate it ? And more pertinently,
how am I supposed to provide support for users who do such things ?
I guess you are not. If I did not miss anything here, the only topic
was about "packaging". There it is a basic requirement, if the packager
likes to avoid patching the supplied Makefile.
If I release a source package, and someone has a
problem compiling
or installing it, I'd be happy to help. But not if the installation
procedure has been modified for no good reason - I could probably
go along with some changes, but where does that end ?
I guess there will be other people who will help out. So don't worry.
The web page about $DESTDIR you pointed says that one
of the uses
would be to allow a user without root privileges to install in
some local dir (s)he has access to. But it contradicts that same
use by declaring that 'embedded file names will not be modified'.
Which in some cases will mean that the application will not run.
May be, but this depends on the application using the supported
file(s). There may be applications allowing to load modules from
standardised user directories. But there must be some kind of
convention about the location.
$ cd
$ find . -name share
./.gnome2/share
./.local/share
./.kde/share
[...]
Seems not to be uncommon to use File System Hierarchy (FSH)
compatibility in home directories.
To install into a e.g. a home directory a user would
have to modify
$PREFIX, not $DESTDIR.
Depends on the convention.
Guido
--
http://www.bayernline.de/~gscholz/
http://www.lug-burghausen.org/