Re: ITP: netpbm

[Charles Wilson <cwilson at ece dot gatech dot edu>]

Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc) wrote:


> I'm not sure why this makes more sense for this package than it would for
> any package.  So, to me, this is not a requirement for generating this 
> package or at least not at this time, unless somebody can point out how
> this package would be considered "special" in this regard.
> 
> In general, I don't see the advantage to having many "bin" directories,
> at least insofar as it moves toward separate bin directories for every
> package.  It would just lead to the proliferation of directories in PATH 
> or many complaints on this list stating "I installed X but when I run it,
> it says 'X: command not found'!!!"  I'd rather avoid either of these 
> alternatives.


Funny you should use 'X' as your variable.  Think /usr/X11R6/bin/...

I agree, we shouldn't worry too much about keeping /bin "clean" -- 
although distributions are moving towards putting stuff into /opt/pkg/* 
and making symlinks these days.

However, IMO netpbm, like XF86, is a special case -- how many other 
packages have 223 executable files and scripts?  ("KDE" doesn't count; 
the KDE environment consists of lots of different packages; netpbm is 
one integral unit (or at most 4).  And besides, doesn't KDE install into 
its own tree?)

--Chuck