Re: [gentoo-dev] Why the FHS can't be followed

[Fuper <futurist@directvinternet.com>]

On Tue, 2002-07-02 at 20:54, Luke Ravitch wrote:
> I'd be okay with something like:
> 
>      /usr
>        +--->X11R6
>              +--->gnome
>              |     +--->1
>              |     +--->2
>              +--->kde
>                    +--->2
>                    +--->3
> So I vote for one of the above to layouts.  Picking the right one is a
> matter of decided which gives the best breadth/depth ratio.

I agree.  The whole discussion seems to move toward that conclusion.  I
also now agree that Gentoo is not FHS compatible because it defines
non-standard directories in /usr.

Now, as for Stow -- I beat you up for not loving Stow!  I may find some
drawbacks in the future that are not apparent to me now but it seems to
me that the tiny Stow script makes it possible to install, upgrade, and
remove software packages without depending on a database to track all of
the files.  For example, I can answer the following questions without
reference to an rpm or dpkg (or portage) database:

Q:  Which files were installed by FramerD?  
(A: All of the files in /usr/local/stow/framerd-2.3/

Q:  How can I upgrade mit-scheme from version 7.7 to 7.7.1?
(A: cd /usr/local/stow; stow -D scheme-7.7; stow scheme-7.7.1


Q:  Which binaries are used for accessing Wordnet?
(A: ls /usr/local/stow/wordnet-1.7/bin
 or ls -l /usr/local/bin | grep wordnet

That last one works because every binary is symlinked into local/bin and
so ls -l gives a clear view of what package each binary belongs to; e.g.

wishwn -> ../stow/wordnet-1.7/bin/wishwn
wn -> ../stow/wordnet-1.7/bin/wn
wnb -> ../stow/wordnet-1.7/bin/wnb