Subject: Re: Locations of some packages baffles me
To: None <>
From: John Darrow <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 06/28/2001 13:26:14
Greywolf <> wrote:
># From: Frederick Bruckman <>
># On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Greywolf wrote:
># > If it's something that needs X11 libs to build and/or is designed to run
># > on an X display, should it not live inside $X11BASE?
># The last time this came up, we couldn't get any consensus. Maybe now
># that xpkgwedge is apparently working, we can start moving X packages
># to ${X11PREFIX}?
>Okay, I didn't realise that xpkgwedge was an issue in this.  All I knew
>was that if we were going to mix X11 stuff in ${LOCALBASE}, why have
>${LOCALBASE} at all?

Try turning that around:

If we're going to mix stuff that just happens to use x11 libraries but
comes from pkgsrc, with the X11 system itself that comes from /usr/xsrc,
then why have LOCALBASE at all?  Why not just mix "non-x11" pkgsrc stuff
into /usr/bin with the rest of the system binaries?

That way lies madness.  (or Linux.)

IMHO, /usr/X11R6 should be treated as part of the base system, just like
/usr/bin, etc.  It comes that way, it is installed as part of the base
system install (by sysinst, not by pkg_add - future possible packaging
not withstanding), and is rebuilt out of /usr/xsrc, using source which
we've imported into our CVS tree - _not_ /usr/pkgsrc, which pulls down
outside sources on its own.

Packages are packages.  Where do we draw the line as to what goes in
X11BASE?  "X11-like" libraries?  "X11-like" binaries?  Anything that
even touches a single file in X11BASE?  Emacs has an X11 interface
(along with its text interface), should it go in X11BASE?  (e.g.
should we just get rid of USE_X11 completely and always do USE_X11BASE?)

Frankly... I think that separating the packages into two categories
(X11BASE and non-X11BASE) was a bad idea in the first place, and that
it's even necessary to use something like xpkgwedge to get them back
together the way they should be is sad...


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