Request for volunteers to help track down packages that use /usr/X11R6

[dragoran]

Mike A. Harris wrote:

> Overview:
> ~~~~~~~~
> The X.Org Foundation has finally changed X11 to install itself
> into the /usr heirarchy by default instead of the /usr/X11R6
> hierarchy.  The basic rationale is that with modern packaging
> systems like rpm, deb, etc., there is no need to isolate the
> X Window System into its own private hierarchy on the filesystem.
>
> Originally, the /usr/X11R6 directory was intended to strictly
> be the location where X11R6 itself would get installed.  Over
> time however various other 3rd party software packages, addons
> and other stuff has infiltrated into the /usr/X11R6 heirarchy
> for no really good reason, and some of it still sits in there
> today.
>
> A year or two ago, I knew this change would be coming in the
> future, and sent out email to inform other package maintainers
> that they should update their packages to install their files
> in FHS compliant directories instead of abusing the /usr/X11R6
> heirarchy.  I'm not sure how many people actually listened
> though, so we're about to find out.  ;o)
>
>
> What's changing specifically:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> X.Org X11 will no longer use the /usr/X11R6 directory hierarchy
> at all.  It uses /usr, and installs files where you'd expect
> them to be found within that heirarchy more or less (although
> it is a bit buggy in this regard currently, that'll be fixed
> prior to X11R7's final release).  The libraries, binaries,
> fonts, config files, data files - everything is moving.
>
> Along with this upstream X.Org change, there will be a number
> of backward compatibility issues that we'll face, where we
> may need to provide backward compatible symlinks for cases like
> applications hard coding the path to X binaries instead of
> using "which <appname>" and similar.  We'll be keeping an
> eye on such issues and considering where we should provide
> compatibility links.
>
>
> What we'd like volunteers to help with:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 1) A lot of existing Fedora Core, Fedora Extras and other 3rd
>    party packages currently install themselves into /usr/X11R6,
>    need to be updated to install themselves in a more
>    appropriate location under /usr, using %{_datadir} and
>    friends in their rpm specfiles.  Volunteers are needed who
>    are willing to take on the task of reporting bugs against
>    the offending packages, and preferably also attaching
>    patches to fix the rpms.
>
> 2) A number of packages might have shell scripts, .desktop
>    files, or other things with hard coded paths to binaries
>    such as /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm, or to data files, or other
>    files traditionally installed under /usr/X11R6.  Please
>    report bugs against these packages, and where possible,
>    change them to use "which <appname>" instead of hard
>    coding the path to the executable/file directly.  In some
>    cases dynamic solution might not work, so hard code the
>    new path in that case unless there's another appropriate
>    solution apparent.
>
> 3) If you can personally think of any application or compat
>    problems that might occur when the changeover is made,
>    please report them to me via email in advance, so we can
>    try to find a solution sooner than later.
>
>
> This message is being sent out to encourage community
> involvement in the process, and to help weed out problems
> sooner in the development cycle than later on, as there
> is likely to be a fair amount of package churn, so we'd
> like to get things in order far far in advance of
> FC5test1.
>
> Thanks in advance for any feedback, and also to any
> volunteers who decide to help out.
>
some apps have hardcoded -L/usr/X11R6/lib in there makefiles (which 
allready make problems on multilib systems)