On Thu, 23 May 2013 03:00:51 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
## Use $MOZ_TMPDIR if set. Otherwise use /var/tmp instead of /tmp ## because of 1GB /tmp limit in Fedora 18 and later.
It is insane to hardcode /var/tmp.
Considering the comment, they probably think it's insane to put /tmp in RAM, and since web browsers are often used to download huge files and /tmp is the default non-hardcoded dir, they're trying to avoid users complaining about failed downloads.
There's no guarantee that /var/tmp is larger than 1 GB.
Making an application default to /var/tmp would be acceptable, if it respected $TMPDIR and didn't export the changed env var to programs it launches. In parts of the Firefox source code even $TEMP and $TMP are examined, if $TMPDIR is unset. Firefox upstream evaluates $TMPDIR. It doesn't know $MOZ_TMPDIR. Do we want $FOO_TMPDIR for every program that defaults to storing large/huge files in /tmp. Hopefully we want to make it evaluate $TMPDIR instead, or make Fedora default to /var/tmp instead of /tmp.
For reference, see the very long debate about tmp-in-tmpfs.
That one is not for ordinary human beings. ;-)