use of /usr/local by packages (again)

Michael Beattie mtbeedee at gmail.com
Thu Aug 25 11:44:40 CDT 2005


are you saying that there's actual stuff from packages installed
there?  There shouldnt be.

There may be empty directories though.  If there's actual stuff there
that yuo didnt put there I would check what package it goes with and
file a bug against that package unless they have a good reason for it.

On 8/25/05, Alvin Thompson <alvin-ubuntu at thompsonlogic.com> wrote:
> no comments on this from anybody who knows about/is in charge of this
> stuff? should i submit a bug?
> 
> -alvin
> 
> 
> Alvin Thompson wrote:
> > thanks to all for the informative responses. you are right; the stuff
> > under /user/local mostly seems to be placeholder directories.
> >
> > while i agree that programs can and should look under
> > /usr/local/whatever to see if there is any firmware/extensions/other
> > stuff that the user added, i'm not so sure i like the idea of the distro
> > adding even placeholder directories--it should be up to the admin to
> > explicitly add them if needed. one person pointed out that the
> > placeholder directory is to tell the user that they can add stuff there.
> > i would argue that that's what documentation is for.
> >
> > i guess if it's the policy that placeholder directories are ok, i'll
> > have to live with it, but i don't think it's a good idea. if i (and i
> > imagine other admins) have /usr/local on it's own partition, i usually
> > mount it read-only. /usr/local is for _my_ stuff; i don't expect
> > /usr/local to be written to just because i add a package from the
> > distribution. now i'll have to make sure that /usr/local is writable
> > whenever i install a package, which can be difficult in some cases (see
> > below).
> >
> > but the biggest problem isn't the placeholders, it's that some programs
> > actually store stuff there on their own under /user/local and don't work
> > properly if the stuff is not there. to illustrate why this is a problem,
> > consider my use case, which i'm sure applies to many admins: i have an
> > NFS shared /user/local on my network. when i install a computer on the
> > network, i normally configure it so that it mounts the shared directory
> > as /usr/local. this way all of the scripts/programs/stuff specific to my
> > network is in one place, and i can change it in one place. but now i
> > can't do that because it will break programs in this distro.
> >
> > my (unsolicited) two cents,
> > alvin
> >
> 
> 
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