Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!barnett From: barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: Software installation opinions needed Message-ID: Date: 20 Sep 90 13:26:41 GMT References: <25908@shamash.cdc.com> <1990Sep19.125944.6489@cs.utk.edu> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: barnett@crdgw1.ge.com Followup-To: comp.unix.admin Organization: GE Corp. R & D, Schenectady, NY Lines: 47 In-reply-to: emery@linus.mitre.org's message of 19 Sep 90 17:17:15 GMT In article emery@linus.mitre.org (David Emery) writes: I get VERY UPSET by 3rd party installations that must be done as 'root'. Here Here! Considering that I often attempt to install software on a NFS server of one architecture, and the tape drive is on another machine of another arcitecture, I would also like software developers to consider the following: The installer is not root The file system is not local, but NFS mounted (i.e. being root wouldn't help. The tape drive is not on the local system. The system doing the installation might be diskless. /usr is mounted read only The location of the software might move after the installation is complete. Large architecture independent data files should not be duplicated if different machine types are supported. For instance, we have a large common file server (actually we have two - one is a clone). We install software in either /common/`arch` or /common/all The `arch` directory is for machine dependent files. The /common/all is for all systems, or software that supports multiple architectures. (i.e. /common/all/frame/bin/sun3 /common/all/frame/bin/sun4, etc.) The emacs lisp files are in /common/all/emacs/lisp We also have /usr/local - for server and clients. Some machines have /local - for machines with local disks. It is handy to be able to create one link ( either a symbolic link, or a mount directory, and replace one package with another i.e. a more recent version. Bottom line - assume nothing is standard in any system. -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett