Hello,
Dr. Werner Fink wrote:
It would be a great win if teTeX would fulfill the FHS[1], in
short all configuration should be placed in /etc/texmf/,
all variable data in /var/lib/texmf/ (beside the fonts which
should go to /var/cache/fonts/), binaries depending on
the local architecture should go to /usr/lib/texmf/, and
the sharable rest may go to /usr/share/texmf/ ... this because
accordingly to FHS[1] /usr can be mounted read only ;^)
On one hand you're right, it would be feasible to make teTeX conform to FHS. This is especially true for distribution maintainers.
On the other hand, it is imensely great to have a directory structure as it is now. For at least two reasons:
1. if one does not use a pacaging system to maintain installed software, it's really nice to have everything installed under one directory point. It's really easy to un-install such software: "rm -rf directory/" does the trick.
2. I always enjoyed the possibility to install teTeX on one NFS-shared directory and do it for different hardware platforms. And only maintain one single configuration instance for the whole package. Plus share the 'temporary' files, such as .pk files (this was more important in times when CPU speed was much lower as it is today).
Perhaps this could be a compile-time option? Something like:
old style: ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/teTeX
new stlye: ./configure --with-fhs
Best regards, Metod
