From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20AAD8EC-F932-4BFD-9056-04B15A337687@9srv.net> References: <20100325114948.GA7249@polynum.com> <20AAD8EC-F932-4BFD-9056-04B15A337687@9srv.net> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:09:51 -0300 Message-ID: <32d987d51003252309y1afed86cmeade902fc83780d@mail.gmail.com> From: "Federico G. Benavento" To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: [9fans] Man pages for add-ons Topicbox-Message-UUID: f3590eb2-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 I think it also needs to be noticed that "base system" in lunixes implies a huge a mount of stuff On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 2:59 AM, Anthony Sorace wrote: > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Unix has two camps for approaching this proble= m /usr/local and /opt. > While they're almost never followed well on modern unix systems, the idea= is > basically a global local overlay vs. a per-package overlay. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The /usr/local approach takes all packages not= part of the base > system and creates a "local root", a global mirror of (roughly) the root > file system. Those poor souls don't have bind to work with, so everything > ends up "knowing" to look in /bin and /usr/local/bin, /etc and > /usr/local/etc, and so on. Packages from multiple sources are all intermi= xed > in one /usr/local, so you've basically got the base system vs. everything > else. EBo's /sys_aps is basically a recreation of /usr/local. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The /opt model creates per-package trees under= /opt, for example > /opt/SomePackage. Within, it gets a similar looking overlay, but specific= to > that package. It's then up to the user or site admin to determine which > packages get installed. Based on a similar (but much shorter) conversatio= n > on inferno-list, a few of us are trying out this model for third-party > packages within Inferno. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The Plan 9 approach today is either install ev= erything in / > (/386/bin, /sys/include, &c) or in your personal home dir and bind as > needed. The later is irritating on multi-user systems, and the former can > make maintenance a lot harder. Replica's -c and -s help, but it still > requires more vigilance from the admin than it seems like it ought to. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Personally, I've always preferred the /opt mod= el, as it makes it > easier to tell at a glance what's installed and to work with components > individually. The (non-)overlay can get unwieldy on Unix, but our namespa= ces > make that much easier for us. It also give both admins and users > package-level control over what gets included. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Like I said, I and a few others have started p= laying with this in > Inferno. If it works reasonably there, I intend to try something similar = in > Plan 9. Anyone likes to beat me to it, I'd love to hear about your result= s. > --=20 Federico G. Benavento