Things I don't like about linux

neuron · Advocate Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 2371

(note on topic, I love linux, I use linux every day, and I'd rather kill myself than admin another windows box, BUT..)

Installing software... seems kinda clumsy doesen't it? And I don't mean emerge, I mean where shit actually goes. Scattered around the system, while most/some stuff follows "the" standard, putting itself in /usr/bin and /usr/share for example. Some doesen't, some stuff likes /opt (few but existant), some /usr/local, and some games prefers it's own /usr/local/games/<dir>. Would be great if everything would follow one standard. So it'd be easy to know exactly where it went (easily that is).

I'v seen so many "I just installed a program, how do I run it" threads around on messageboards, and people asking where example configuration files are (of course /etc/conffile.example.. or /etc/<dir>/samples, or /usr/share/doc...).

I kinda like the mac aproach (if I understood it correctly), application directories, everything is in the directory, click on the directory and you run the application.
Personally I'd love to see that used in linux, application in dir, per default click on dir = run (run = execute <dir>/run or something like that), second mouse button can give options such as enter (to find custom configuration files), or setup, to execute a setup program.

Second... linux binary compatibility... yeah, a blade that cuts both ways, I've seen discussion on it many times, every time some are very against it and some are huge fans of it, either way it seems even though there are supporters on both sides it's not beeing done, or "getting decided" about.
I personally think linux would do SO much (well, know, duh, you don' t have to be a genius to figure that one out) better when it comes to comercialy supported apps that it currently is, if it was around. Of course, there may be more people releasing closed source apps instead of open source apps. Which would be really bad.

Just wondering what everyone else thinks of the linux world

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Other Things Gentoo.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Regarding "where shit actually goes", please see the discussion in this thread.

There is also a document on www.gentoo.org that explains why things are where they are (use to be anyway). I'll see if I can find it later.
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shm

Cossins

kitano · Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2003 5:06 pm Post subject:

i just read an article about a to-be-invented file system here:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/9/172159/7912

and i have this link from here

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=18375&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=175

so far for the point of executing a whole dir, that'd be a fine feature.

but to the point of having programs somewhere specific, i think it violates the unix filesystem convetions. which linux adopted, more or less.

you can find them by googling, they are woth a glimpse.

anyway, i guess you could adopt any linux the way you want it by scripting. looking for executables, and softlinking them together in one dir, well that'd be pretty dirty, but you get the idea, don't you?

it's not linux, it's the way it developed / evolved.
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neuron · Advocate Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 2371

Azaghal · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 103

I'm happy with the current FS layout.

But I do agree that installing stuff is a pain, but that's what you have distro's for.

And part of the problem is the huge ammount of libs/apps, and packages who substitute each other.

And KDE/Gnome are only making things worse by writing apps which do the same only for a different toolkit. :roll:

We should really just have a new toolkit which overcomes the flaws of both QT and GTK... So graphical apps are at least interopable (I can't spell).
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sgaap · Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:34 pm Post subject:

shm

ebrostig · Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2003 12:05 am Post subject:

The layout of files and data can always be improved. What you need to consider is the reasoning behind the structure the way it is today.

Also note that the reason many commercial apps install their system differently may be from a performance related point of view.

Let me use Oracle Database as an example.

1. Create a regular user called oracle. Create at least 2 new groups, oinstall and dba and make sure that user oracle is a member of these 2 groups.

2. Install the database normally under the users home directory (notice it is not installed as root and it is never run as root either).

3. Datafiles can be put anywhere.

Here Oracle installs it cleanly under the user oracle and it makes it much more easy to maintain and the DBA (Database Admin) does not need root access. The software can basically be installed anywhere on the system where user oracle has the permissions to do so. The environment variable ORACLE_HOME points to the top level directory of the software. This makes it easy to spread a few gigabytes of software around. Even more so important when we are talking about an installation of Oracle E-business. It can easily take up to and beyond 100GB of diskspace. Spreading it over multiple disks helps on the performance.

I have looked at gobo linux and until they can come up with a complete native system with an alternative directory structure and a flexible way to have /Programs over more than one disk, it is only an interesting experiment.

Erik
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Abraxas · l33t Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 814

trouby · Apprentice Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 168

Eh, I posted a thread exactly about this issue,

And about mentioning slackware before, Slack installs its base under /usr/bin /usr/sbin, same as any dist,
The point is that almost ANY package that you install from source installs its files under /usr/local, this way you have some saparation between your 'core' linux files and the external packages you installed. so you have some order, you know where to go and find what.

In Gentoo, after installing several packages, all get installed under /usr/bin and messing up with the core linux files, I personally don't like it, although using qpkg u can determine which file is apart of which package and its directory, but still, it would be much nicer while emering you could decide the prefix of the package...! think of that

shm

TheEternalVortex · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject:

I actually think that Gobo's system is much better. Each package is installed in its own dir, e.g. gcc-3.2.3, which has all of the bin/lib/doc/conf files. So you can completely uninstal something just by deleting this dir. It's pretty cool.
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Zugot · n00b Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 23

The /usr, /etc, /var, /opt makes sense if you take a second to understand it.

/usr is where most of the good stuff will go
/usr/local is for stuff you install yourself, so you can keep it separate from the vendors

/etc for configuration files

/var for variable data like logs

/opt for stuff which comes precompiled

I love it... and I hope it never changes. Have a look at the LSB (i think that is what it is called)

Roguelazer · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 5:39 pm Post subject:

/me points at rox's application bundles.
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jcummins · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 6:51 pm Post subject:

ebrostig · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:48 pm Post subject:

Promit · Guru Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 344

First, I don't see the problem with Windows...for one thing it actually gives a choice of where you want to install a bloody program (MacOS does this sometimes and sometimes just doesn't seem to bother). But in general things go to C:\Program Files\... with a couple required DLLs put in C:\Windows\System32\....

Although I have to admit, I really like the MacOS way best. Have you ever heard of an uninstaller for a piece of Mac software? Exactly.
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richk449 · Guru Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 345

Promit · Guru Joined: 15 Nov 2003 Posts: 344

[quote="richk449"]

richk449 · Guru Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 345

[quote="Promit"]

neuron · Advocate Joined: 28 May 2002 Posts: 2371

semiSfear · Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 302 Location: Adelaide, SA