From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (int-mx1.corp.redhat.com [172.16.52.254]) by listman.util.phx.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m1L9wEoi029412 for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:58:15 -0500 Received: from mx3.redhat.com (mx3.redhat.com [172.16.48.32]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m1L9wESH006004 for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:58:14 -0500 Received: from dukecmmtar02.coxmail.com (dukecmmtar02.coxmail.com [68.99.120.49]) by mx3.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m1L9vgPm007439 for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:57:43 -0500 Received: from [192.168.0.100] (really [70.166.17.50]) by dukecmmtar02.coxmail.com (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20080221095738.DJEY13126.dukecmmtar02.coxmail.com@[192.168.0.100]> for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:57:38 -0500 Message-ID: <47BD4B11.7060908@baechler.net> Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:57:37 -0800 From: Tony Baechler User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Windows/20071031) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Linux for blind general discussion References: <200802201639510875.001DD67D@127.0.0.1> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-RedHat-Spam-Score: -0.18 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.58 on 172.16.52.254 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.63 on 172.16.48.32 X-loop: blinux-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: Configuration files X-BeenThere: blinux-list@redhat.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: junk Reply-To: Linux for blind general discussion List-Id: Linux for blind general discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:58:15 -0000 Yes, I would agree. Expanding on this, FreeBSD always installs ports under /usr/local no matter what. This way all files specific to the OS go in /etc and all additional ports go in /usr/local/etc. It's the same with documentation, binaries, and such. Debian never puts anything in /usr/local because that is set aside for the local administrator. Debian packages are never supposed to touch any files in /usr/local if my understanding is correct. The problem you have with just letting things go where they will is that you end up with multiple binaries for the same program. I ran into this with an ftp server. The Debian version went to /usr/sbin and the local version went to /usr/local/sbin. The Debian version kept being called because it was first in the path. Yet another example is Qmail. It expects a set of subdirs under /var/qmail and doesn't go in /usr/local at all, even though it probably should. Geoff Shang wrote: > > The issue here is that different systems have different defaults. > Debian packages have a standard place for putting things. Tarballs > usually install to /usr/local but not always. Other systems or > distributions will install to other places. I don't have anyhting in > /opt on my system for example but some do. > > You basically have two options. First, you can put everything in the > same place so you know where to find it, though you can run into > trouble if you mix packages with source tarballs. The second is to > let things go where they go and live with it. > > I usually do the latter, partly because I prefer to install tarballs > to /usr/local and let packages install to other places, and partly > because I'm too lazy to bother with configure options, etc.