> On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 04:54:24PM -0500, in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> '/usr/portage' is the wrong place for the Portage tree. The data is > certainly sharable, but certainly *not* static. Furthermore, FHS states > "Large software packages must not use a direct subdirectory under the > /usr hierarchy." The Portage tree should be moved, for FHS compliance, > for the reasons listed in the FHS rationale, and for the reasons discussed > elsewhere in this thread. > > But to where? > > The catch is this: if the machine in question is running on a network that > actually *shares* its sharable data (e.g. the /usr hierarchy), it makes > sense to put the the Portage tree somewhere under /usr. Except during sync > operations (which would be performed by the host serving the /usr tree), > the Portage tree remains generally unmodified, so it fits the requirement > of "...read-only data ... must not be written to." Even though many > files in the Portage tree are architecture-specific, _the_tree_itself_ > is architecture- and host-independent. > > Unfortunately, a Gentoo machine is a very dynamic environment. The Portage > tree changes drastically and often. On a machine which maintains its own > Portage tree, '/var' is absolutely the right place to look. FHS provides > two likely options: '/var/cache' (application cache data) and '/var/lib' > (variable state data). The DISTDIR, on the other hand, is much less > dynamic and could still find a home under '/usr'. I would like to add that actually not all of the data in /usr/portage is dispensible. If the profile directory is removed, emerge will not work (we might be able to fix this). Further in the /var/cache/edb dir there are files that are not caches in that sense of the word. They are also not replaceable. So I think if we want to have this discussion we need to look at all files that are involved in portage. Paul -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
