Re: Hurd FS hierarchy (was Re: LD_LIBRARY_PATH troubles)

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2002 at 03:58:21PM +0000, Mark Ellis wrote:
> Hi all, i'm curious, is there a specific reason GNU uses this directory 
> when the FHS seems to be trying to get rid of it ?

Well, it seems like an appropriate place.

> The subject pops up in linuxfromscratch now and again about where to 
> put binaries that want to go in here, i'd be interested to hear why you 
> guys decided to keep it.

The only alternative is /lib/package/..., but that is kind of an abuse of
/lib, because programs are not libraries.

Some use /sbin, which is also an abuse because those programs are not
generally usable by users directly by definition.

Some use even /usr/sbin/init.d/ or other weird places.

You really want to use /libexec for these programs.  I have the feeling that
some people thought they could get rid of another directory with just a
couple of files (just for the sake of getting rid of it), and then had to
find new places and invent reasons to put them there (such reasoning could
be like this: "/usr/sbin/init.d/ is right because it is a binary that is not
boot-essential and not used by any user."  Of course, this assumes that you
don't want to put it in /libexec a priori, or maybe because a mislead idea
of aesthetics.  My suspicion is that some people have no brain, just grey
fuzzy things in their head :) just kidding)

Thanks,
Marcus


-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de