Linux standards

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, John Chambers wrote:

> Jerry Feldman writes:
> | Most of the better apps require the following steps:
> | 1. ./configure [ configure arguments ]
> | 2. make
> | 3. become root.
> | 4. make install
> | 5. become non-root.
> 
> Hey, you forgot a very common (and important) step:
> 
>   2.5. make test

And the just-as-common (at least for big packages):
    2.1. make coffee


There's a problem with a universal packaging system that works across 
distros, and it was touched on at the meeting last night: file locations 
and formats.  Different distros put very critical things in different 
places.  A universal package manager would have to deal with that.

Not that it couldn't be done.  A cool way to handle that would be a 
package format that permitted macros for directories and files and other 
resources, and let the package manager (user-configurably) handle the 
macro expansion.

For instance, a package could ask the package manager to install 
"%localbindir%/mybinary" and the package manager would know the right 
directory to put it in.  You would need %man3dir%, %usercronfile%, 
%locallibdir%, %perlmoduledir%, %startupnetfile%, and probably at least a 
dozen more.

You would need something AT LEAST that powerful and flexible.

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DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
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