Arch Linux

jourdan

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2006-01-22

Posts: 40

Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

I'd been getting used to having my DE stuff in /opt.  Then, all of a sudden, Xfce is in /usr.  Not that I mind one way or another, but it did throw me for a loop:

As soon as I installed and started x, my whole Xfce panel setup disappeared.  I'm using:

exec xfce4-session

Xfce loaded without any panels. The Settings > Panel Manager wouldn't even start.

I created a new user and copied my .xinitrc to the new /home/user, then started x.  This time Xfce ran great (again).  So to make this happen for my user, I backed-up most of the hidden files in my user's home with 'mv' and started x again.  So far so good, the default panels and Xfce in all it's glory come up fine.

Then I switched the icon theme to Tango, and spent an hour putting all my panels back the way I like them.

The panels themselves are working fine, but I'm missing icons that I wasn't missing before.  For example, the Xfce notes plugin has no icon.

I found all the '.desktop' files for the panel plugins in:

/usr/share/xfce4/panel-plugins

Why they aren't with /usr/share/applications is beyond me.

Now, after a few hours performing my Xfce rescue, I'm ready to fix things.  New icon theme would probably avoid pacman upgrades breaking everything, but that's a lot of work even if using existing icons.  Editing the .desktop files is fast, but not at all effective if another pacman upgrade moves their location in the filesystem again (and I'm not sure I should use pacman to block portions of upgrades).

Well, on to the icon theme I guess.  If I just copy Tango and create a few more symlinks within it, maybe some of icon names the Xfce .desktop files reference will be found.

citral

Member

Registered: 2005-05-07

Posts: 87

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

During the upgrade the notice did say to do  grep -r /opt ~/.config/xf*
and change the paths. For me that worked fine.

I do wonder why XFCE was moved though. Surely XFCE has just as many right to be in /opt as Gnome and KDE.

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they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.

JGC

Developer

Registered: 2003-12-03

Posts: 1,664

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

GNOME will also move to /usr by the weekend, though its upgrade path is much cleaner as what was going on with XFCE. We want to step away from /opt/ for packages that integrate perfectly in the system as every other package that goes into /usr.

stonecrest

Member

From: Boulder

Registered: 2005-01-22

Posts: 1,190

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

I do wonder why XFCE was moved though. Surely XFCE has just as many right to be in /opt as Gnome and KDE.

Gnome is also going to be moving. (Probably KDE too?)

Good riddance to /opt, I say.

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I am a gated community.

Bralkein

Member

Registered: 2004-10-26

Posts: 354

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

Man, I dunno. Things like java, qt and mozilla probably don't need their own little /opt place, but KDE is pretty self-contained and I think it makes sense to have it there. Hell, my /opt/kde/bin folder contains 540 binaries! Now I don't subscribe to the Apple way of doing things where every tiny thing has its own special folder, I think that that's ugly. However, I think it's best to judge things on a case-by-case basis, rather than just universally apply a rigid policy for where things should live.

OTOH, it wouldn't really be a huge deal for me if KDE moved to /usr. Just voicing my opinion is all!

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

I agree with Bralkein. Moving the larger DEs to /usr probably isn't optimal. That said, I really don't thing most people will notice.

cheer

Member

From: Russia, St. Petersburg

Registered: 2006-08-02

Posts: 131

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

Agree with Bralkein.

Xilon

Member

Registered: 2007-01-01

Posts: 243

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

I hope Gnome, and any other DE's being moved /opt -> /usr will be put though testing first...

phrakture

Arch Overlord

From: behind you

Registered: 2003-10-29

Posts: 7,879

Website

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

The reason things are currently installed to /opt is because they, at one time or another, broke the FHS.

Here's another huge thing: quite a lot of work goes into making sure gnome apps know that gnome is not in /usr (same with KDE, et al).  In addition, new users often yell and scream when they need to log out after an initial install to /opt (profile.d scripts).

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sweiss

Member

Registered: 2004-02-16

Posts: 635

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

I was a bit surprised with that move.
I enjoyed the separation and categorization of the configuration files the most. /etc will grow quite large with this move.

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dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

i agree with stonecrest

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
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palmaway

Member

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 63

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

So will KDE move too?
I would not see that as a good thing, I like the Slackware style of keeping DEs separated, especially KDE.
KDE is huge:

[paolo@laptop ~]$ du -sh /opt/kde/
755M    /opt/kde/

I think its place is where it is now, and I hope it won't move. I would not worry too much for the logout thing...

Paolo

Last edited by palmaway (2007-04-24 02:24:46)

mosor

Member

Registered: 2007-04-02

Posts: 22

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

And what about KDEmod? Will it remain in /opt or will it be moving as well?

lloeki

Member

From: France

Registered: 2007-02-20

Posts: 456

Website

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

Good riddance to /opt, I say.

well, not totally, as things like java and openoffice have this kind of hier:

$ ls /opt/java/
COPYRIGHT    README_ja.html               bin   include  man
LICENSE      README_zh_CN.html            db    jre      sample
README.html  THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.txt  demo  lib

$ ls /opt/openoffice/
LICENSE       README.html                   licenses  readmes
LICENSE.html  THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.html  presets   share
README        help                          program

$ ls /opt/eclipse/
about.html     eclipse.ini   icon.xpm         plugins
configuration  epl-v10.html  libcairo-swt.so  startup.jar
eclipse        features      notice.html

so really, I don't think they can integrate with FHS without some shitty workaround (see how gentoo installs eclipse in /usr, roughly they just drop it in /usr/lib/eclipse3.2 and symlink binary to /usr/bin). and I think /opt is really the place for this kind of things.

The reason things are currently installed to /opt is because they, at one time or another, broke the FHS.

Here's another huge thing: quite a lot of work goes into making sure gnome apps know that gnome is not in /usr (same with KDE, et al).  In addition, new users often yell and scream when they need to log out after an initial install to /opt (profile.d scripts).

as a software dev, I always had that feeling of out-of-place weirdness about gnome/xfce/kde in /opt, but thought 'hey, that's just me'. now I get it:  that implies more dev work, and more work always implies more potential issues. so dev-wise, it's wrong.
plus now, all things being in /etc it makes it a snap to backup config files.
what's more, I don't get how the fact that an app is called 'self-contained' changes anything. it's not like we're on a mac or windows and you copy it to some other directory or computer and expect it to work... as for /etc being crowded, the move really didn't add much to it...

and really, I like FHS, where files are separated by their role, not their belonging app.

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Weeks

Member

Registered: 2006-01-26

Posts: 91

Re: Why the Move from /opt to /usr ?

When I project has many, many binaries and libs I like to see what they all are by easily navigating the file-system. I don't see what FHS compliance will gain arch.

I don't care that much though, and if the maintainers come into a lot of problems redirecting all the gnome apps to /opt then go for it.