Re: Software/HD ecology

[David Masterson <dmaster@synopsys.com>]

>>>>> Ajanta  writes:

> Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de> wrote:

>> At our site, we have a directory for software with subdirs for each
>> program, and subsubdirs for each version.  For example, 
>> 
>> ./configure --prefix=/usr/sw/emacs/21.2
>> 
>> is sufficient to configure Emacs in such a way that subsequent `make'
>> and `make install' can be undone easily by just removing the
>> directory /usr/sw/emacs/21.2.  This works because Emacs is the only
>> program in that directory.
>> 
>> It's a very simple approach, but it works well enough for us.

> I am a beginner at this, so let me understand step-by-step. If you
> ./configure with the above option, make, make install, will
> everything remain in /usr/sw/emacs/21.2? Where do the binaries go?

A directory structure is created under /usr/sw/emacs/21.2 with a
standard layout for all the different parts (like 'bin' for binaries
and 'lib' for libraries).

> If it is /uar/sw/bin, I can imagine you can just put it in your
> path.  However, if it is /usr/sw/emacs/21.2/bin, then do you have to
> modify the path each time you install a program? (I don't see either
> as a big deal, I am just trying to figure out what actually
> happens.)

This is potentially true if you use _just_ this scheme.  In fact, if
you carry this to extremes such that each program is installed in it's
own directory structure, your PATH could become quite long.  However,
tools like GNU Stow build on this scheme by adding the ability to
symlink these directories (and subfiles) into the standard location
(typically /usr/local) so that your PATH need only have the typical
/usr/local/bin in it.  The tools like Stow can also move the symlinks
to a new version of the package or remove the symlinks altogether.  In
this way, by removing the symlinks and then removing the package's
personal directory, you are sure that all of that version of the
package has been removed.

-- 
David Masterson                David DOT Masterson AT synopsys DOT com
Sr. R&D Engineer               Synopsys, Inc.
Software Engineering           Sunnyvale, CA