Menu-spec update (Was: [Patch] Update 'How to' to clarify computation of datadir)

[Karol Pietrzak]

On Wednesday 22 March 2006 05:25, Francois Gouget wrote:
> I will note that it does have a provision for the case where /usr/share
> is not writable and suggests to write to /usr/local/share in that case.
> But I cannot see when one would be able to the latter without being able
> to write to the former since both are usually owned by root.

As per by FHS:

"""The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when 
installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when 
the system software is updated."""

""""/usr is the second major section of the filesystem. /usr is shareable, 
read-only data.""""

"""[...] /usr can now be mounted read-only""""

In short, /usr/local could be writeable while /usr could easily be read-only.  
I think the issue is not whether both /usr/local and /usr are writeable on 
most people's desktops, but that /usr/local and /usr serve different purposes 
as per the FHS.

This wording hints that third-party software should not be put in /usr, and 
instead be put in /opt or /usr/local (so it will not be overwritten, etc.).  
This means the XDG specs should fully support /usr/local as an installation 
prefix.

All quotes are from http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html.

-- 
Karl Pietrzak
kap4020 at rit.edu
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