Re: [gentoo-user] A question regarding non-Portage software...

[Alan McKinnon <alan@linuxholdings.co.za>]

On Sunday 11 March 2007, Alex Schuster wrote:

> Additionally, I like to have the stuff separated in sub-directories
> of /usr/local, and use stow or better xstow to create symlinks, so
> the software appears to be installed directly in /usr/local.

That sounds  like an awful lot of work, all for no additional 
benefit. /usr/local is for locally compiled pieces of software, and 
normally one runs 'make uninstall' in the code's src dir to remove it. 
Also, /usr/local is not supposed to have a hierarchy of sub-dir's (a'la 
windows) beneath it per LFS. /opt is a better choice for that.

As Bo and others have mentioned, an ebuild that you create yourself and 
place in a local overlay is by far the best solution, *especially* if 
the package installs just fine with './configure && make && make 
install'. In that case, the ebuild is literally just a few statements 
such as SRC_URI, HOMEPAGE and perhaps a DEPENDS if there are selectable 
configs. You gain all the benefits of stow plus all the benefits of 
portage, including emerge -C to remove the package from the system

Try it, it's WAY easier than most folk think it is

alan


-- 
Optimists say the glass is half full,
Pessimists say the glass is half empty,
Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five
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