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From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Alternative installation directories for X11R4
Message-ID: <1991Feb20.211743.13728@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 20 Feb 91 21:17:43 GMT
References: <32602@sequoia.execu.com>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 52
In-Reply-To: keith@sequoia.execu.com (Keith Pyle)

In article <32602@sequoia.execu.com>, keith@sequoia (Keith Pyle) writes:
| Is it possible/practical to install X11R4 somewhere other than in
| the default directories of /usr/bin/X11 and /usr/lib/X11?  I would
| prefer that both of these be in the /usr/local tree since this is
| readily available across our DEC workstations.  The default means
| more manipulations of mounts and links since I don't have the disk
| space to put it on each and every one of them (nor would I!).  Are
| there any negative aspects for X11 to using an alternate installation 
| destination such as I mention?
| 
| I can see from Imake.tmpl that there are values such as DestDir,
| UsrLibDir, and IncRoot, but there isn't any clear description of
| them or whether this is a reasonable way to affect the change I
| would like.  If this is The Way, is it sufficient to put the
| appropriate defines in my .cf file?

Well, what I did here was use the default settings on all the paths,
and then said:

	make World
	make DESTDIR=/local/X11R4 install install.man

/local/X11R4 is an architecture-specific symlink to a common
NFS-mounted area (similar to your /usr/local shared mounts,
apparently).

I then went in on each machine and executed a script that did the
equivalent of:

	for i in bin lib include man/mann man/man3
	do
		ln -s /local/X11R4/usr/$i/* /usr/$i
	done

Actually, my script pays attention to symlinks that need to be removed
as well, and looks at dotfiles, but you get the idea, I hope.

Works like a charm.  The only gripe is having to rerun that script on
each box every time I add a new tool (because the addition of a
manpage requires a file symlink, not a directory symlink).  I s'pose I
could have /usr/man/manx and require people to put that in their
MANPATH, but this is more user-friendly.

(The script is in Perl, of course, and also handles linking into the
client /export/root area for diskless clients.)

Just another new X hacker (and Perl hacker),
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/