[haiku-development] /packages, /system/packages, /system/package-links…

  • From: Jonathan Schleifer <js-haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 18:09:21 +0100

Hi!

We currently have the following paths:

/packages
/system/packages
/system/package-links
/boot/home/config/packages

In /system/packages, we have hpkg files. In /boot/home/config/packages, we have 
hpkg files. So far, this seems consistent. But in /packages, we suddenly have 
package-links, just as in /system/package-links. IMHO this is inconsistent and 
not what it is. There are no packages in /packages, just symlinks.

To me, this is quite confusing. Why is /packages suddenly symlinks? I would 
expect that of /system/package-links, but not of /packages. And why does 
/system/package-links contains all package links, even those from 
/boot/home/config/packages? From a user point of view, this just makes no 
sense. Or am I really the only one finding this inconsistent?

Therefore, my proposal would be:
Remove /packages and /system/package-links, instead use /package-links and 
mount the virtual filesystem there. That would give the following layout:

/package-links
/system/packages
/boot/home/config/packages

or, more consistent:
/package-links
/boot/system/packages
/boot/home/config/packages

With this, the name makes clear what it is and there is no ambiguity. I do know 
that this means we need to recompile all packages, thus my proposal would be to 
create a /package -> /package-links symlink for the meantime until all packages 
have been recompiled. We can still do this now, but later this will be more 
troublesome.

Oh, and while we're at it: What's the point of having /system -> /boot/system? 
Just to save 5 characters at the price of cluttering /? I do know that there 
were heavy objections to adding a /usr -> / symlink for compatibility, but why 
then a /system -> /boot/system symlink?

--
Jonathan

Other related posts:

  • » [haiku-development] /packages, /system/packages, /system/package-links… - Jonathan Schleifer