Re: 'install' and package management

[Paul Eggert]

Mario Salzer <address@hidden> writes:

> What's the purpose of that install utility anyhow? Having a look at
> the man page makes it look like just a more fancy 'cp' variant (even
> if it has in fact less options and features).

Yes, that's pretty much it.  (It has a few extra features, too.  :-)

> Since it is nowadays mainly used from within those ugly autoconf-
> generated Makefiles (make install) - wouldn't it then make sense,
> if that install tool did somethink useful, like keeping a list of
> what it installed where and when?!

Something like that might be nice, as an option.  It ought to be
designed with modern package facilities in mind, e.g. the aptitude
package of Debian GNU/Linux
<http://packages.debian.org/stable/admin/aptitude>.  The trick is to
have a useful command, that a fancier packaging facility like aptitude
could make use of.  I'm afraid it's not a trivial task.  Is this
something you could look into?