[maemo-developers] Considering /opt and MyDocs in your packages

[From: Graham Cobb]

On Thursday 10 September 2009 10:15:44 David Greaves wrote:
> Graham Cobb wrote:
> > I would suggest that Nokia add /opt/bin to the PATH, add /opt/lib to the
> > LD_LIBRARY_PATH and add /opt/lib/pkgconfig to PKG_CONFIG_PATH (all on the
> > device and in scratchbox) and that we ignore the FHS rule that packages
> > should not install into those directories.  That would make things a
> > little easier and more robust.  We can then build with --prefix=/opt and
> > add a couple of softlinks if necessary for files which still need to be
> > elsewhere.
>
> And if you depend on porting in a few other debian packages you'll
> repackage them for maemo?

No, in most cases just leave them and let them install into /usr as normal -- 
most of them are small libraries or, occasionally, small command line apps. 

> At the moment 'porting' an app is usually a semi-automated process.
> Having to figure out the debian/rules for each and then hacking their
> ./configure to --prefix=/opt

Many of the Debian packages I have to port to get the libraries I need require 
a configure change.  That is one of the things I normally expect.  Along with 
changing the Maintainer, often changing the dependencies (usually linked with 
the configure change -- to remove a dependency on something not ported and 
not relevant for Maemo), changing the Makefile.am to remove building the 
docs, etc.  Doesn't take long.

> PLEASE don't require a ./configure change
>
> optify is the lesser evil

My position is completely the opposite.  Where possible make a configure 
change -- only use optify in the cases where using configure doesn't work 
(like source code which has hard coded paths).

How about a combination:

1) Allow use of optify -- not automatically in the autobuilder but as a single 
line in the debian/rules.  Any package that wants to use that is fine.

2) Nokia sets up the environment (in both the SDK and on the device) to 
include /opt directories in PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, PKG_CONFIG_PATH and 
PYTHON_PATH.  In that case, I would encourage Mer to also implement this.

3) Allow use of --prefix=/opt.  Any package that wants to use that is fine.  
In particular, allow installation into /opt/bin, /opt/lib, etc (not just 
into /opt/<package>).  Note that this is not FHS compliant (FHS would 
require --prefix=/opt/package).

An alternative to 2 and 3 is to use --prefix=/opt/package and make the package 
install symlinks where necessary (e.g. into /usr/lib/pkgconfig and 
into /usr/bin).  More work for the maintainer but better FHS compliance and a 
better chance of working on old versions of Maemo.

Graham