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

[Luke Ravitch <luke@dslextreme.com>]

On 2002-07-02 12:09, Jean-Michel Smith <jsmith@kcco.com> wrote:
> However, I'm a little confused why (or how) it was decided that /opt
> would be an inappropriate place to have put this.  In other words,
> why is /usr/kde/3 and /usr/kde/2 better than /opt/kde/3 and
> /opt/kde/2?  I'm not criticizing (I have no real opinion on FHS
> compliance, or lack thereof, at all), I'm just wondering what the
> rationale is for not wanting to put things like this in /opt.

My feeling is that nothing in the /usr tree should depend on anything
in /opt.  Things in /opt are meant to be self-contained.  If we put
Gnome and KDE in /opt, where do we put apps that optionally depend on
them?  E.g, XMMS isn't really a gnome app (and so shouldn't be under
/opt/gnome) but can have Gnome dependencies (for the applet).

Gnome and KDE are most like X.  X has its own directory in /usr.  It
is part of the system.  As such, it's not such a big deal if programs
that depend on X live outside the X tree.  Of course, the FHS
considers /usr/X11 an unfortunate goof that, sadly, needs to be kept
around because of the tremendous inertia behind it.

Though I'm generally a big supporter, I think the FHS might be wrong
on this one.  Gnome and KDE should go under /usr/gnome and /usr/kde.
I do agree that adding an immediate subdirectory of /usr is not
something that should be taken lightly.  However, Gnome and KDE are
significantly entrenched as part of Gentoo that they might warrant an
X-like exception.

Another idea (likely a better one) is to put Gnome and KDE in their
own directories under /usr/X11R6.  FreeBSD has GTK and Gnome apps (I
don't know what they do with KDE, I imagine it's similar) in the X11
tree.  That's always seemed right to me.  But they put them in there
like we dump Gnome into /usr, so there isn't the advantage of separate
trees for separate versions.  I think /usr/X11R6/gnome and
/usr/X11R6/kde trees could really work out well.  And I don't think
the FHS regulates the contents of the X11 tree, so we'd keep them
happy as well.

My $0.02.

-- 
Luke