[Freegis-list] FreeGIS on RedHat 7.1

[Daniel Tourde]

Hi Bernhard,


Thanks for your answer.

> > > i once tried to build a re-locatable GRASS rpm. But this does not work
> > > right now, there are internal requirements of GRASS that prevent this
> > > (e. g. hardcoded paths in driver setup files).
> >
> > But Grass5 been still a beta version, wouldn't it be nice to make it
> > freely relocatable?
> 
> Yes it would be nice.
> However I am not sure it can be done easily.
> Details should probably be discussed on the grass5 development list.
>         http://www.geog.uni-hannover.de/grass/grassdevel.html

I am going to take a look at it.


 
> > RedHat is not such an uncommon distribution and I am
> > sure I am not the only one willing to have a clean RPM for this
> > distribution. Mandrake uses also RPMs and other ones... An RPM that
> > would compile correctly, install at once cleanly and work smoothly
> > without having to hack and fix parameters here and there would be great.
> 
> We from Intevation are constantly trying to improve the rpms
> and we welcome any help and suggestions with this.
> IIRC /opt is the right place to install optional packages like GRASS
> according to the LSB which requires FHS 2.2.

I am going to read it carefully. I am more used to the RedHat structure,
where everything is put under /usr. I must admit that I kinda like it...
:)


 
> > OK. Are you telling me that simply changing from /opt/grass to /usr
> > would create problems?
> 
> Yes.

Aha!
So using prefix=/usr could cause problems. This is not very practical
and this can lead to misunderstanding.

 
> > > Why not creating a setup with symbolic links? Link your /opt residing
> > > under / to /usr/opt and move over any directories already there.
> >
> > Yes but this is exactly the kind of things I want to avoid. I don't want
> > to modify /etc files to add paths here and there.
> 
> If you have additional application packages installed, you would
> need to incoporate the /opt directory anyway. And the /opt was
> designed to be on a different partition then / .

Yes I know but because I never got any program using /opt, I did not
create any dedicated large partition for /opt. I left it under / (/usr,
/var and /tmp are separated partitions) and I decided to limit the /
partition to 100Mb.


 
> > I have several
> > machines, I upgrade them regularly and RedHat has a tendency to move
> > things around (documentation for instance). This would be a pain in the
> > ass to be forced to hack and check again and again every 6 months. I
> > definitely prefer RPMs sticking to the RedHat structure when they are
> > recompiled.
> 
> I can understand this.
> We are working hard to get usable rpms for the common distributions
> for the Freegis CD.  It looks GRASS packageing will continue to have minor
> flaws in the future due to the nature of GRASS.

I know you are working hard and I am happy with the CD I bought. I just
wanted to mention my reaction as a RedHat Linux user and administrator
about the Grass package. I know, my case is particular but I think many
people (and administrators) are thinking and acting like me: simplicity
is the keyword. I don't know the internal structure of Grass but I think
relocation of programs is a fairly common (and wished) feature (UNIX
rules Windows sucks.... ) and, without entering in the debate of FHS 2.2
or not FHS 2.2, this would be nice to have "Distribution traditions
aware RPMs", something that would use the option --fsstnd= option.


		Daniel




-- 
***********************************************************************
Daniel TOURDE                             E-mail : daniel.tourde at foi.se
                                                Tel : +46 8 55 50 43 44
   FOI, Swedish Defence Research Agency; Aeronautics Division - FFA
       Dept. of Wind Energy and Aviation Environmental Research
SE-172 90 Stockholm, Sweden                        Fax : +46 8 25 34 81
***********************************************************************