Packaging Guidelines: /opt

[Conrad Meyer]

On Thursday 23 October 2008 06:57:50 pm Andy Theuninck wrote:
> I'm trying to put a package together for webmin. It wants to install
> to libexec, but if I do that rpmlint (rightly) complains that there
> are non-executable text files. Perl files & HTML files are intermixed
> and separating them out would be a patching nightmare. With a bit of
> sed scripting, I can coax the whole thing into a different base
> directory.
>
> The official packaging guidelines say Fedora follows the Filesystem
> Hierarchy Standard, and as I read FHS /opt would be the most
> appropriate place to dump this mess. If I try to use /opt/webmin
> though, rpmlint pitches a fit about using /opt. Nothing in the
> guidelines says I can't use /opt. Can I just ignore all these errors?
>
> Also, neither the packing guidelines nor FHS make any mention of /var.
> Maybe that's a more appropriate spot.
>
> These are the packaging guidelines I've been referring to:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines

Actually, the FHS explicitly mentions /var [0] and /opt [1]. And you can't use 
either for a package included in Fedora. (Or at least, you can't install your 
package to a /var/PKGNAME prefix.)

[0]: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE31
[1]: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE14

Regards,
-- 
Conrad Meyer <konrad at tylerc.org>