David Cournapeau wrote: > On 8/16/05, Tracey Hytry <shakti@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >>I use FC3 with the planet ccrma on top of it. I try to keep the machine as clean as I can(good way to test the Fernando's newest builds). But when I see the newest/greatest program anounced I have a hard time not wanting to check it out and build it on the machine. > > > Well, this approach, as installing in /opt (or whatever directory > without the package manager to know), is really error prone on the mid > term, I think. For on or two programs, this works ok. But still, you > have no ways to remove software this way, most of the time, because > you have no information on what files and modifications to the system > was done by the software you've installed (except if an uninstall > target was done in the source of the programs). ? essentially I agree but why would uninstalling a program that was installed into ONE directory under /opt be a problem? There were obviously NO modifications to the system outside of that directory (I usually make sure of it by not installing as root) > And then comes the problem of libraries. In that case, it quickly > become a big mess if you do not know exactly what you are doing. Let's > say for example you installed a library from source, and then it > become available for your package manager: you still may use the > version installed from source, wihtout you knowing it, and it may > cause some random crash because of some version differences. > > Basically, installing from sources without the help of the package > manager is ok if nothing depends on what you are installing. It > quickly become unmanageable if other softwares depend on it. I found > checkinstall much more robust. yeah, but installing into /opt/package-version works on pretty much all unix(like) OSs regardless of what package system you use. You're right that it's not a good general solution but it's pretty handy for small-scale installations (few programs and/or libs). Plus since everything goes into one directory you're pretty sure that the rest of the system is not affected (not sure how good is checkinstall in this area, it tries to check what the install did but I'd rather have install NOT touch the rest of the system, whether under supervision or not). erik
