Re: Status and outlook of LSB and FHS compliance of Fedora.

[Aaron Bennett <aaron bennett olin edu>]

David Kewley wrote:

> > What about /opt?  From the FHS 2.3 document
> > http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE14 , it's seems that
> > all of Fedora's optional packages need to install into /opt/<packagename>.
> >    
>
> I don't read it this way.  The FHS 2.3 says, "/opt is reserved for the 
> installation of add-on application software packages."  Nowhere does it say 
> anything equivalent to, "add-on application software packages must be 
> installed in /opt."  There's a big difference there, one that I'm willing to 
> assume is intentional. :)
>  
Trust me here -- if I'm setting up a straw man, it's because it needs to 
be burned...

How do you reconcile the thought that /opt an optional place to install 
add-on software packages with what the FHS says about /usr/local?


>       /usr/local : Local hierarchy
>
>
>         Purpose
>
> The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when 
> installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being 
> overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for 
> programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not 
> found in /usr.
>
> Locally installed software must be placed within /usr/local rather 
> than /usr unless it is being installed to replace or upgrade software 
> in /usr. [27] <http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1450>
>
>  
I suppose that could best be read as "/usr/local" is machine specific, 
while /opt is exportable and mountable.  At least that's how a Solaris 
SysAdmin would probably take it.  But it's pretty wierd if that's the 
case: it's ok to dump stuff into /usr/local/bin , but everything in /opt 
needs to be in /opt/<packagename>/bin ?  Why? 

The best answer I can come up with is that the people at FHS didn't do 
any better job of grappling with this then I am.  There are two issues:  
what is an add-on, and where should it go?  I suspect that in RHEL world 
-- and you'd have to ask Red Hat RHEL product support for an answer -- 
anything that is not distributed by Red Hat is an add-on.  Here in 
Fedora world we have the Fedora Extras repository which is sanctioned by 
Red Hat but not distributed or written by them.  It's more of a grey 
area.  What about stuff from livna.org, that according to Red Hat 
doesn't officially exist?  Is xmms-mp3 and 'add-on'?  Or a locally 
installed software package?

Those are tough questions.

What I think happened with the FHS is it's trying to be all things to 
all systems.  There are times when installing everything into /opt is a 
good idea.  There are times when it's not.  There are times when 
installing stuff into /svr is the right way to go... and times when it's 
not.  I think that it's totally valid to have standard, canonical 
locations for files.  I'm in favor of a Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.  
Just not necessarily this one.  Whatever one we use, it has got to be 
consistent.  We can't be moving stuff from /var/apache to /var/httpd to 
/svr/httpd to /services/webserver to /services/something else every two 
years.




--
Aaron Bennett
UNIX Administrator
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering