Re: /usr/local removed... but entries for it exist yet!

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Date: 14 Dec 2004 11:11:08 +0100

Frederick Bruckman <fredb@immanent.net> wrote:
>
> Who are these "most people"? Why do we ship a compiler with the a base
> system, if no one codes? ;-)

Hi Frederick.

That is a very good point. But in the 80's and earlier 90's /usr/local
was a directory used to install locally developed software, either
scripts or binaries. The C compiler is a requirement for any Unix-like
system (I hardly understand why some companies sell the C compiler as
an optional software package, they should provide the compiler in the
base system and sell other development tools like profilers or
development environments instead).

The C compiler can be used to build that software or other packages
required for production.

> Honestly, if you install commonly available software out-of-the-box,
> it'll go to "/usr/local" by default; your scripts are going to go in
> "/usr/local/bin", and so on. I doubt if you'll still have an empty
> "/usr/local" after you've been running NetBSD for a while.

Agreed, but pkgsrc/ports offer a better approach. Software can be
compiled from source code. It allows users to build highly customized
packages that will go to /usr/pkg or /usr/ports. There is not a
requirement for /usr/local for customized software, though.

I prefer installing some customized software in /usr/contrib (that
directory existed in earlier BSD systems), and using /usr/pkg
for installing precompiled binaries. I do not need a lot of
customized software (mainly nmh, metamail, fetchmail, and some
other packages). Most software is just perfect in its default
installation. In the past, /usr/contrib was used for storing
software that was not under the direct control of the operating
system developers, and it should be used by some companies that
provide third party packages that are not being updated or fixed
but are required yet. This way, users should be able to install
updated binaries in either /usr/{pkg,ports} (BSD) or /opt (SVR4.x)
without breaking the system. I have adopted this model, but I
build software in /usr/contrib myself.

Shorty, if someone needs customized binaries he can build those
binaries from source code using pkgsrc/ports. That is the why
pkgsrc/ports is so powerful.

> I don't believe "/usr/local" has been "dropped". I believe, rather, it's
> been declared hands off, like "/home". In other words, it's designated
> as being under the complete control of the user. If "/usr/local" were
> universally despised, that would be one thing, but that's not the case.
> What happened (IIRC), was that one developer, who apparently arranges
> his "/usr/local" like "/opt", insisted that we stop installing the empty
> "man" and "share" directories, and no one could see a reason to keep on
> doing that.

I understand it now. If /usr/local has not been "dropped" providing
references to it in both the shell scripts and man configuration
file makes a lot of sense, even if the directory is not installed by
default.

I agreed about empty directories. I do not like, for example,
those empty /usr/share/man/html?? directories. OTOH, I hope that
man pages will NOT be writen in HTML in the future! :-)))

OTOH, /usr/share/man/{cat,man}?? makes perfect sense to me. Those
directories are being used and are standard on any BSD or SVR4.x
distribution.

Sometimes cleaning the system directories is a good idea. It happened
with some files that were removed from the NetBSD 2.0 source code.
But perhaps /usr/local was more useful than /usr/share/man/html?? is.
At least it can be used for customized binaries that are not build
using pkgsrc/ports or, as it was used in the past, for locally
developed software.

Alternatively, the installation program can be modified to chose if
/usr/local is available. By the way, the new installation program
is *fine*. Now, setting up a lot of filesystems is an easy task
(no more text windows over the filesystem parameters list!), and
when a kernel is chosed, other kernels are automatically dropped.
It makes more sense and works much better. And it does not core
dumps now!

Nice to see that now /tmp is a MFS by default. We do not need to
modify /etc/fstab as described in /usr/share/examples/fstab.

It would be nice being able to mount another MFS filesystem in /var/run.
But it currently only works in OpenBSD. I am not sure what the problem
is, but once mounted, the system cannot be cleanly shut down. :-(

Cheers,
Igor.

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