Re: [gentoo-user] KDE-4.1.3 + KDE-3.5.9 = messed up KDEDIRS ?

[Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de>]

On Mittwoch 12 November 2008, Dmitry S. Makovey wrote:
> On November 12, 2008, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > I had something similar on my first try:
> > >
> > > kde-4 went into /usr
> > > kde-3 went into /usr/kde/3.5
> > >
> > > And bizarre weird errors kept happening. I remerged all of kde-4 with
> > > USE="kdeprefix" to put it back into /usr/kde/4.1 and all the weirdness
> > > went away
> >
> > in my opinion installing kde straight into /usr and changing the default
> > behaviour is the most stupid thing gentoo devs have done in the last
> > couple of years.
>
> wouldn't call it stupid though. FHS compliance is a good thing (I'm a
> sysadmin so I really appreciate when things can be easily located
> universaly). 

why? the FHS is a stupid standard. Why is following stupid standards a good 
thing? What next? LSB compliance - because it is great to be broken by 
definition?

> I think what failed is communication on that change. In
> developers defense I'd say that we're dealing with ~arch packages here so
> we've been warned they'll be somewhat not-so-stable. What I think needs to
> happen is gentoo users have to be warned in big red letters everywhere
> possible when upgrading from KDE3 to KDE4 to make firm decision whether to
> use "kdeprefix" or not.
>
it would have been better to NOT introduce that kdeprefix flag and instead 
introducing a FHS flag - which should have been off by default. The current 
way - kdeprefix to get sane behaviour, that turned off, changing the default 
behaviour is either stupid or evil.

> Enforcing proper FS layout is a good thing IMO. Just needs clear
> communication before marked as stable :)

Like making kde update interactive? Require a 'yes, I know about kdeprefix' 
dialog box?
kde has always been in its own directory tree. /opt back in the suse days for 
example. Elderly kde documentation told people to install kde in its own sub 
tree - and I loved that. I always hated gnome for cluttering /usr with its 
garbage. Having a big project like kde in its own tree has a bazillion of 
advantages.