David Kewley wrote:
Trust me here -- if I'm setting up a straw man, it's because it needs to be burned...
What about /opt? From the FHS 2.3 document
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE14 , it's seems that
all of Fedora's optional packages need to install into /opt/<packagename>.
I don't read it this way. The FHS 2.3 says, "/opt is reserved for the installation of add-on application software packages." Nowhere does it say anything equivalent to, "add-on application software packages must be installed in /opt." There's a big difference there, one that I'm willing to assume is intentional. :)
How do you reconcile the thought that /opt an optional place to install add-on software packages with what the FHS says about /usr/local?
I suppose that could best be read as "/usr/local" is machine specific, while /opt is exportable and mountable. At least that's how a Solaris SysAdmin would probably take it. But it's pretty wierd if that's the case: it's ok to dump stuff into /usr/local/bin , but everything in /opt needs to be in /opt/<packagename>/bin ? Why?/usr/local : Local hierarchy
Purpose
The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr.
Locally installed software must be placed within /usr/local rather than /usr unless it is being installed to replace or upgrade software in /usr. [27] <http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#FTN.AEN1450>
The best answer I can come up with is that the people at FHS didn't do any better job of grappling with this then I am. There are two issues: what is an add-on, and where should it go? I suspect that in RHEL world -- and you'd have to ask Red Hat RHEL product support for an answer -- anything that is not distributed by Red Hat is an add-on. Here in Fedora world we have the Fedora Extras repository which is sanctioned by Red Hat but not distributed or written by them. It's more of a grey area. What about stuff from livna.org, that according to Red Hat doesn't officially exist? Is xmms-mp3 and 'add-on'? Or a locally installed software package?
Those are tough questions.
What I think happened with the FHS is it's trying to be all things to all systems. There are times when installing everything into /opt is a good idea. There are times when it's not. There are times when installing stuff into /svr is the right way to go... and times when it's not. I think that it's totally valid to have standard, canonical locations for files. I'm in favor of a Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. Just not necessarily this one. Whatever one we use, it has got to be consistent. We can't be moving stuff from /var/apache to /var/httpd to /svr/httpd to /services/webserver to /services/something else every two years.
-- Aaron Bennett UNIX Administrator Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
