[haiku-development] Re: Removing /boot/common
- From: Jim Saxton <black.belt.jimmy@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 21:57:57 -0700
On 10/17/13, Jessica Hamilton <jessica.l.hamilton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I'd like to suggest the removal of the /boot/common hierarchy. We
>> originally introduced it as a place where software could be installed
>> globally, while /boot/system would contain a completely read-only,
>> self-contained base system. Even if something broke in common, one would
>> still be able to boot into the base system via a boot loader safe mode
>> option. (I believe that was never implemented.)
>>
>
>
>> I don't expect a lot of problems due to removing /boot/common. BeOS never
>> had it, so old software wouldn't mind. Anything newer should use
>> find_directory(). There are a few packages that hard-code common paths --
>> e.g. in search path lists (gcc, cmake) -- but that can be remedied and
>> mostly doesn't have negative effects anyway. We have already aligned the
>> internal layout of all installation locations, so that there shouldn't be
>> any surprises in that department either.
>>
>> Thoughts, suggestions, flames,...?
>>
>
> With regard to removing B_COMMON_*, this is actually breaking the BeOS API.
> Isn't one of the goals of Haiku R1 to also be source-compatible?
>
> Although not a huge fan of multi-user possibly coming to Haiku, aren't you
> also going to need these when that rolls around?
>
> Jessica
>
If the software is compiled from another language ... say YAB,
find_directory() is not available, only the finddir command line tool,
and that does not take into account any depreciated directory
constants. An old constant is not re-directed to the proper directory,
it returns an error. I suggest this be changed so that compiled apps
from any language can find the proper directory as long as they can
call a command line tool and get the output. This will even help
installation scripts work.
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