Arch Linux

daniel_shub

Member

Registered: 2012-06-21

Posts: 82

Creating symbolic links in /usr/bin or have users add to $PATH

I maintain the matlab package (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/matlab/). This is basically a proprietary blob package where everything eventually gets dumped into /opt. The resulting package has a /opt/tmw/matlab/bin directory. Currently the PKGBUILD links the contents of this directory to /usr/bin. While users seem to want this, the biggest problem is that this creates a conflict with the texlive-bin package. While I could rename the conflict, I am inclined to think the Arch way is for people to add /opt/tmw/matlab/bin to $PATH.

Should the PKGBUILD add links to /usr/bin?

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,282

Re: Creating symbolic links in /usr/bin or have users add to $PATH

Given the circumstance, that people who use Matlab are quite likely to write their papers in LaTeX, I'd personally prefer a rename. If this would break Matlab for some reason, I'd go for the manual $PATH option.

Are the conflicting executables compatible or are those real name collisions? If Matlab can use the ones from texlive-bin, maybe you could let Matlab conflict with texlive-bin and have a second package for texlive compatibility. How about a split package?

daniel_shub

Member

Registered: 2012-06-21

Posts: 82

Re: Creating symbolic links in /usr/bin or have users add to $PATH

It is a real name collision on mex. The texlive-bin package provides mex which handles polish hyphenation. The name apparently is arbitrary (http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2006- … 11676.html). In MATLAB mex coverts MATLAB code into an "exectuable".

The rename does not appear to cause problems so I should be able to go that way.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,540

Re: Creating symbolic links in /usr/bin or have users add to $PATH

Adding it to $PATH would still create problems with the name collision.

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,282

Re: Creating symbolic links in /usr/bin or have users add to $PATH

If it's only one conflict, you can rename it and inform the user in the post install script.