On 08/31/2010 09:08 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 08:24:30PM -0400, Leam Hall wrote:
> Fedora curently steps outside of convention. What I'm advocating is
> returning to them. You're right that the /usr filesystem is somewhat
> less critical to server boot and control that /bin and /sbin. However.
> the applications that the server hosts, like apache and sendmail, should
> not be there.
Leam, Fedora follows the convention established in the FHS. Vendor-provided
packages (that's us) are managed by RPM and install to the standard
hierarchy. Third-party packages install in /opt. This is absolutely the
correct approach for an integrated distro, and with modern package
management tools there's little disadvantage to it.
Matt,
Fedora packages third-party apps like Apache. So your point is taken as
it supports what I've been saying. ;)
And if we're talking about giving up RPM, that's a pretty
drastic deviation
from Fedora and Fedora's history. Unless a lot of though and work were put
into doing it right, we'd probably end up reinventing the wheel, lumpily.
Something else might be done with multiple RPM databases, but that's also a
lot of refactoring, and probably the wrong tool for the job.
No, not giving up RPM. But fixing the SRPMs so that the third party
stuff gets installed in /opt.
> With isolation you don't have to worry about filesystem
space
> consumption, about changing the OS packages and hoping the upgrade
> didn't whack the application's files anywhere, or about trying to
> recover from a bad crash and remembering what all goes where at 3AM.
This isolation idea also goes against several other core Fedora packaging
rules, like using system libraries in preference to bundled ones.
Until those system libraries have an application dependancy that
precludes OS upgrade. I agree that the application should use a system
bit if the system bit is in the OS core itself. However, if the
application needs libXYZ and we don't package libXYZ in the core then
they can keep their own versions and their own coherency.
The other point I'm hoping to get across is that just because a Fedora
rule has been made doesn't mean it's the best answer for mixed
environments. Fedora rules so far seem pretty desktop centric and
RH-Linux myopic. Most of the SysAdmins I know work with 3-5 different
OS's, 2-4 versions of each, a few applicance OS versions, and take care
of applications 'cause the developers don't have a clue. The simpler we
can make that job for them the more valuable Fedora Server would be, to me.
Your idea may have merit, but it's really not a match for Fedora
Server.
If there's consensus on the latter, that's fine. I have not heard that
though, nor have I really heard anything that convinces me /opt and
separate filesystems are not the way to go. If you can convince me,
great! It means you've been able to help me learn more.
Leam