Status and outlook of LSB and FHS compliance of Fedora.

[David Kewley]

OK, this is my third time posting this -- the first two time I used non-member 
addresses. ;)  I hope the moderator doesn't approve my two goofs.  I 
apologize for them.

On Friday 04 June 2004 06:40, Aaron Bennett wrote:
> Phil Knirsch wrote:
> > Hi folks.
> >
> > I've been looking at how well Fedora is compliant with the latest LSB
> > and FHS specifications lately.
>
> 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. :)

In practice it appears that all Fedora Core, Fedora Extras (fedora.us, and 
loosely including livna.org), and most third-party packages are installed 
in /usr or / as appropriate, not in /opt.  Usually only certain large, 
commercial packages are installed in /opt, in practice.  I don't believe that 
this practice violates the FHS.  As you point out below, this is very 
different from Solaris.

If we really wanted to put more stuff in /opt, the debate would be over the 
meaning of "add-on application software packages".  Does that mean anything 
except the default Fedora Core packages, as you seem to suggest?  Or does it 
mean anything other than the default Core and Base packages, since everything 
else could be considered optional and therefore add-on?  Or should it mean 
anything provided by anyone besides the Fedora Project?  Or what?

I don't think there's any meaningful dividing line here between what is add-on 
and what is not.  So it's rather convenient that the FHS states that /opt is 
*reserved* for add-on packages, not required for them. :)

> That's actually the Solaris way as well as, according to the "Rationale"
>   part of this section, "a well establish practice in the UNIX community."
>
> I used to make a living packaging things for Solaris, and Sun's
> packaging standard clearly states that all add-on software goes to /opt.
>
> I've always hated it.  Largely because have /opt/gnome/ , /opt/apache ,
> /opt/kde , etc starts to generate PATH variables that are horrible.
> However, the nice thing about that is it avoids this sort of thing:
>
> [abennett at burton abennett]$ cd /usr/bin
> [abennett at burton bin]$ ls | wc -l
> 2404
>
> 2,404 files are in /usr/bin on my FC2 system!

Aw, that's nothing.  After installing all of fedora.us (except conflicts) and 
all of livna.org on top of an Everything FC2 install, my /usr/bin has 4082 
files. :)

Actually, I think the point is, what's wrong with 2404 files in /usr/bin?  
Really?

David