Packaging: Where to install demo apps to?

[Panu Matilainen]

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, Ralf Corsepius wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-06-29 at 18:36, Gérard Milmeister wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-06-29 at 18:17, Ville Skyttä wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2004-06-29 at 10:59, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > 
> > > > IMO, they should not be installed to bindir (/usr/bin), because these
> > > > applications are "not really useful".
> > Are these binaries from code examples for some library or similar?
> Yes. Most of them are coding examples for a library, very few of them
> are actual "usable sample applications".
> 
> > If yes, it might make better sense not to include the binaries, but
> > only
> > the source code in /usr/share/doc/<package-name>-demos-<ver>
> > and make sure there is a functioning Makefile to build the binaries,
> > i.e. allow the user to 'cp -a
> > /usr/share/doc/<package-name>-demos-<ver>
> > .' and then make.
> I had considered this, but  implementing this would require substantial
> effort (The package uses a bizarre and complex GNUmakefile system and
> supports building the example code only as part of the complete
> source-tree.)
> 
> Meanwhile I have checked what Debian does with this particular package:
> * They do not ship the coding examples
> * They install the sample-applications to /usr/lib/<package>

My +1 for /usr/lib/<package> in general for small demo applications, 
depending on the case /usr/bin can be ok as well if the demos are in 
separate package.

I'd still put the coding examples to -devel package under documentation, 
doesn't matter if it compiles there or not, it's often useful just to 
see some sample code for a given library even if you can't compile it 
where it is.

	- Panu -