[fhs-discuss] on the /*/local/ hierarchies

[Christoph Anton Mitterer]

On Sun, 15 May 2011 03:09:52 +0200, Martin Bähr
<mbaehr at email.archlab.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
> On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 10:52:23PM +0000, Christoph Anton Mitterer
wrote:
>> 1) One idea that could be discussed (although it's very unlikely that
>> this
>> is accepted) is, whether all of the current "/*/local*" directories are
>> moved to it's own hierarchy below "/local".
> 
> i have been doing this for years on my machines, because i always found
> it irritating that mounting local would depend on mounting /usr first.
> it seems cleaner to me to have all mounts go into directories in /
> just like /opt (why is that not /usr/opt?)
> 
> of course if /usr is not a seperate mountpoint then this becomes moot.
> (it is more important to have /local (or /usr/local) as a seperate
> mountpoint, because it is not under packet management control, like opt.

Well again,.. I think having a /local hierarchy would be best,... but it's
unlikely that this is accepted by any majority.



> i see 3 ways to install packages:
> package manager:     goes whereever the package defines it.  hopefully
/usr
> source:              goes whereever the admin defines it. defaults to
> /usr/local
> 3rd-party installer: goes whereever the installer defines it.  hopefully
> /opt

Still a bit fuzzy IMHO,... may I try to sharpen the borders even more:

/usr:
package managed AND especially tailored for the system/distribution
package managed (e.g. within Debian: official Debian packages, or
unofficial Debian Multimedia packages)

/usr/local or a hypothetical /local:

completely handled by the local administators, that would be typically
mean "manually" built OR even package managed but not following the
conventions/policies/etc. of the actual system/distribution

/opt:

3rd party software, either manually built, or package managed (BUT again,
not following the conventions/policies/etc. of the actual
system/distribution (e.g. the Debian Policy)

That way we'd have in /usr (except /usr/local) only software which is
(ideally) fully tailored towards each other, i.e. no conflicting files,
versions, etc.)


Cheers,
Chris