XFree86->xorg-x11 conversion

Mike A. Harris mharris at redhat.com
Mon Mar 22 22:06:17 UTC 2004


On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, Robert P. J. Day wrote:

>> > Really, is there a reason in this day that ld.so doesn't automatically
>> > search /usr/X11R6/lib?  /lib, /usr/lib, and /usr/local/lib are already
>> > automatically searched (without being in /etc/ld.so.conf); how about
>> > just patching ld.so to search /usr/X11R6/lib?
>> 
>> What if you wanted to run X11R7?
>
>would it be feasible to just add a symlink, and use a generic name like
>"/usr/X11/lib"?  surely that wouldn't cause a great deal of confusion,
>would it?  at the moment, there's no directory named /usr/X11.

As per the File Heirarchy Standard version 2.3 (and previous
versions), the /usr/X11/lib is strictly a legacy compatibility
thing for compatibility with other UNIX environments.  
Applications should not directly use this directory nor install
stuff in /usr/X11/lib.

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRX11R6XWINDOWSYSTEMVERSION11REL

The FHS reserves /usr/X11R6 for use by the X Window System
version 11 release 6, however it does not mandate that X11R6 
*MUST* exist in that heirarchy.  It only states:

"To simplify matters and make XFree86 more compatible 
with the X Window System on other systems, the following 
symbolic links must be present if /usr/X11R6 exists:
    /usr/bin/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/bin
    /usr/lib/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
    /usr/include/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/include/X11
"

Another thing is that software that is NOT part of X11R6, should 
not ever install files into /usr/X11R6, although a lot of 
software violates this.  The FHS reserves this hierarchy for the 
X Window System itself, and not for random software to use.  ;o)
If anyone knows of software that is not part of X directly, that 
is using /usr/X11R6 to store files, please file bug reports and 
CC me.
 
As an additional note, in the future, parts of the X Window
System are likely to migrate directly into the /usr hierarchy as
the purpose the X11R6 heirarchy once held is not really
meaningful anymore, at least not on Linux systems, and the FHS
does not specify that if X11R6 is installed that it must exist in
/usr/X11R6.  Whenever the transition occurs, there will be some 
level of effort to try to ensure compatibility on as many levels 
as possible to ease the transition.  This probably wont be until 
Fedora Core 3 or 4 though.


-- 
Mike A. Harris       ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - X.org X11 maintainer - Red Hat





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