FreeTDS Development Group

[Brian Bruns <camber AT ais.org>]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2002, James K. Lowden wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 14:28:10 -0400 "Brian Bruns" <camber AT ais.org> wrote:
> 
> > > Seems to me, based on what you and Steve said, that
> > >
> > > ./configure --with-prefix=/usr/local
> > >
> > > would be a better default option than what we have now (and is what
> > > the RPMs do), and
> > >
> > > ./configure --with-prefix=/usr/local --sysconfdir=/etc/freetds
> > >
> > > makes the most sense to me.
> [...]
> > > If you're interested/willing to make one of those changes, I think
> > > 0.60 is a good time to do it.  It would remove one step from the
> > > installation and about 400 words from the UG.  
> > 
> > I'll have to look at the FHS and see what they say.  Of course, not all
> > *nix systems are FHS compliant, but Linux and (some) BSD aim to be, so
> > it's probably a good default.I agree that the version bump is a good
> > time to change this type of default.
> 
> Oooo!  Teacher, Pick ME!  (Says the donkey.  Cf. Shrek)

"Welcome to Duloc such a perfect town, here we have some rules let us lay 
them down...".  My son watches Shrek quite a bit ;-)

> http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-3.7.html
> 
> "/etc contains configuration files and directories that are specific to
> the current system"
> 
> As for the hierarchy under /usr/local:
> 

[quote snipped]

> IOW, no /usr/local/etc, per FHS at any rate.  I say
> 
> ./configure --with-prefix=/usr/local --sysconfdir=/etc/freetds
> 
> looks like a winner.  What do you say?  

I'm in agreement if everyone else is.  My main concern is that we do this 
change once and only once.
 
> The reason I'm so keen on that arrangement is the Principle of Least
> Surprise.  The naïve user issues "./configure" and goes on his merry way. 
> He's never heard about ldconfig, and he's not going to from us, because
> his libs land in a completely predictable (even by ld) place, and he finds
> his .conf files in /etc/freetds, just as he finds for instance his Apache
> files in /etc/httpd.  The clever user with the highly contorted fs knows
> about /etc/ld.so.conf and doesn't need a tutorial from us.  That's two
> wins for the documentation hack (moi).  

Actually when i install apache from source they show up under 
$prefix/conf, so that's probably a bad example ;-)

> --jkl
> 

Brian