[fhs-discuss] Search paths

[Miloslav Trmac]

----- Original Message -----
> so here's a thing to think about before standardizing any new places
> where applications can be placed: how to include them in the search
> paths? Search paths here can refer to various search paths, like the
> venerable $PATH, to $LD_LIBRARY_PATH, to the path where PHP looks for
> its plugins, or Python does, to the places where icon .pngs are searched
> for, or D-Bus service files, or .desktop files, or mozilla looks for the
> flash plugin, or man for the man pages.

My guess is that there are not that many such things that can be usefully standardized at the level of FHS - you have to standardize the facility first (in the list above, a shared library or PHP/python/Mozilla module ABI).

The existing practice I have seen is to install into /opt, then put symlinks into /usr, which makes at least some sense.  In principle there can be conflicts, but having the conflicts explicit is no worse than having them implicit - two vendor packages fighting over the /usr/share/applications/cool.desktop symlink is IMHO better than having /opt/{A,B}/share/applications/cool.desktop, with either A or B winning depending on what readdir() happens to return first on any given day.

The FHS 2.3 wording for /etc/opt and /opt does suggest that installing files outside of these places is expected ("except for those package files that must reside in specific locations within the filesystem tree in order to function properly").
    Mirek