[haiku-development] Re: Question about /system and /boot/system
- From: Dustin Howett <alaricx@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 15:39:31 -0500
On Mar 1, 2011 2:26 PM, "Oliver Tappe" <zooey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> when looking at the restructured folder hierarchy with respect to
> find_directory(), I have realized that it has become quite a mess :-\
>
> This is the current hierarchy (in the pm branch):
>
> boot
> common
> packages
> contents
> add-ons
> apps
> bin
> develop
> ...
> settings
> system
> packages
> contents
> add-ons
> apps
> bin
> develop
> ...
>
> For starters, I wonder where /system should point to: currently, /system
> points to /boot/system, but that folder just contains the 'packages'
> subfolder. While correct in principle, it means that stuff like
/system/bin
> and /system/add-ons no longer work. I have no idea whether or not that is
> going to be a problem with many legacy applications and/or scripts.
> Generally I wonder, what's the purpose of /system anyway?
>
> Furthermore, I'm not at all sure what find_directory() should return for
> some constants - this is what it does currently:
>
> B_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY => '/boot/system'
> B_BEOS_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY => '/boot/system'
> ...
> B_SYSTEM_PACKAGES => '/boot/system/packages'
> B_SYSTEM_PACKAGES_CONTENTS => '/boot/system/packages/contents'
>
> B_COMMON_DIRECTORY => '/boot/common'
> B_COMMON_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY => '/boot/common'
> ...
> B_COMMON_PACKAGES => '/boot/common/packages'
> B_COMMON_PACKAGES_CONTENTS => '/boot/common/packages/contents'
>
> Is that ok or should anything be changed?
> What's the meaning of B_COMMON_SYSTEM_DIRECTORY?
>
> cheers,
> Oliver
>
I have often wondered the point of having a directory like that at all. Why
/system/packages and not just /system? This is reminiscent of Apple's
inheritance of NeXT's similar /System/Library, which appears to serve just
about as little purpose as a "packages" subdirectory of /system.
(I think NeXT should have gone with /System and /Local or /Common and
ditched the Library/ infix as it provides no value. Why are we making the
same error?)
What other things would be going in /system if not for packages/?
-- Dustin L. Howett
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