Compiling programs and KDE

[Johnathan Bailes]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 13:33:52 +0000, James Wilkinson
<james at westexe.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> David Cary Hart wrote:
> > Almost every package is compiled with --prefix=/usr (including KDE) when
> > installing to RH or Fedora.
> 
> When the file is installed using RPM.
> 

Uh, that is not an rpm thing.  Download a gnome rpm from Suse and see
how they hack together a combo of /opt/gnome and /etc/opt/gnome for
prefix and sysconfdir paths.

> 
> That's arguable.
> 
> I'd recommend that if you *aren't* using RPM, put files in /usr/local.
> Keep one area for RPM to manage, and one area that it won't touch. Then
> you don't have to worry about yum update pulling in a new package that
> overwrites a file that you compiled yourself.
> 
> James.
> 

That fits my usual rant about locally compiled programs should be the
only ones installed in /usr/local no matter what the wonderful folks
at sunfreeware.com think or what the makers of linux games think
either /usr/local/games?  I hate that it breaks the whole damn model
for the filesystem and certain tools based on the whole loki stuff
don't want it any other way either.

/ = stuff needed to boot.

/usr = userland programs accessible to everyone.

/usr/local = locally compiled stuff.

/opt = optional commercial software.

Just the way it should be.  However, locally compiled programs in
/usr/local have issues with gconf schemas and such and a lot of care
has to be taken for gnome programs and various options.  Damn thing
should read for various standard locations for gconf key info
including prefix/etc/gconf (homedir)/.gconf and also
/usr/local/etc/gconf.  In fact I might file a bug on that.