On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 05:09:54PM +0200, Eray Ozkural (exa) wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Thursday 17 January 2002 16:21, Daniel Stone wrote: > > You might note the discussion on debian-kde of late, where Eray is > > attempting to set a precedent by installing KDE3 into /opt/kde3. Let me > > first disclose my viewpoint: I think this idea sucks, as you can clearly > > see from my postings. > > > > The answer I got when I asked "Why isn't /opt used in Debian ?" has always > been "/opt violates Debian Policy". > > However on James's message, I read the section and saw that there is no such > thing in neither the policy nor FHS. I'm only saying that installing packages > in /opt doesn't seem to violate the FHS in any way. As I explained in my > messages, "/opt violates Debian Policy" seems to depend on a certain > assumption that "add-on" means "non-free software supplied by third party > commercial vendors" whereas in the text of the FHS there is no such > implication. On the contrary it says distributions can install software in > /opt, just not touch a few reserved subdirs of /opt. > > However, using /opt may not be a good path to follow for most free software. > I understand that as well as you do, especially for software following GNU > Coding Standards it is absolutely unnecessary. >
/opt could be used for all non-distribution software. Personally I prefer the BSD equivalent /usr/local. /opt is a bit too err... SysV-sounding :) for me. The same Solaris freewares are no more installed within /opt as in the past. So all 'local' software (commercial or not) can be installed under /usr/local, also sysadmin's scripts and programs. /me installs all additional (non-Debian,non-Solaris,etc) software under those dirs and hates to see other stuff installed there. They are mine! Keep your hands off :) -- Francesco P. Lovergine