I want to write a wrapper for RPM and dpkg that looks at a config file and interrupts / redirects the installer to put files in the correct places in accordance with the local admin's preferences. using XML to illustrate: <default> <lib>/usr/lib</lib> <bin>/usr/bin</bin> <sbin>... etc ... This would help in several ways: a) With a completely compliant RPM (or whatever), the developer making the installer would merely specify that each file is a binary, or a shared library, etc. b) Alternatively, with an RPM that isn't specified this way, the wrapper could easily parse out which files are which leading to no change whatsoever for developers. The wrapper could choose where to put a file based on what type of file it is (using the file package's tools), or where it's being installed to, ie: things that RPM wants to install to /usr/bin should be redirected to wherever the conf file says binaries live. c) total cross distro goodness. If you've ever run slackware you understand how annoying it is to copy all the includes to a differant place to the other slack programs can see it. One consideration is what to do with binaries that don't live in the path. To which I see two easy responses: a) wrapper makes lots of symlinks. I see no reason why /usr/bin shouldn't be filled entirely with symlinks to /usr/packages/fictional_distro_name/ or whatever the newest distro chooses. Or why packages can't be separated by distro, or whatever the local admin wants. b) an addition to my configuration file ala ld.so.conf. Non-standard (according to the defaults) files are also specified: <program name="mysql"> <bin>/usr/local/bin</bin> ...etc I think that in order to make this work a utility like ldconfig would have to be made to edit the path for users. Having a path that's 250 directories long might mess things up though. I'm sure there are exceptions that would need to be considered, and that's why I appeal to the list for advice in this subject. Thank you in advance, Chuck Vose _______________________________________________ Rpm-list mailing list Rpm-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rpm-list
