Re: Debian and SimplyGNUstep

[Pascal J . Bourguignon]

> On Thursday, October 9, 2003, at 08:25 AM, Helge Hess wrote:
> 
> > On 09.10.2003, at 08:42, Chad Hardin wrote:
> >> I really don't think that you can shove the GNUstep file layout into 
> >> a FHS.  It has to be its own thing.
> >
> > Could you elaborate?
> >
> > Except for applications and maybe frameworks GNUstep stuff is regular 
> > libraries, tools and resources, no different to other ones.


I would  like to point to X11  for example. It's installed  in its own
hierarchy in /usr/lib/X11 (plus some configuration files in /etc/X11).


Actually, sorting  files by category  /etc, /bin, /usr/lib, etc  was a
good idea  when there was a  small number of files,  on slow computers
with slow  disks.  Ok, disks are  still slow compared to  CPU, but you
don't gain anything  in putting all you tools in the  same /bin or all
you libraries  in the same  /usr/lib, because we have  processors fast
enough and memories big enough to keep in cache all the pointers.


Note also that frameworks on  MacOSX, and applications in NeXTSTEP and
OpenStep  work this way,  keeping related  stuff inside  one directory
rather than dispatching the elements all over the file system.

How ridiculous would it be to store all the application executables in
/bin,  all  the  application  icons  in  /usr/shared/icons/,  all  the
application  help files  in /usr/lib/help,  and all  the  libraries in
/usr/lib...


Chad Hardin writes:
> You already said it, Applications are the biggest reason that I can 
> think of.  If GNUstep has frameworks, then that would be another issue 
> as well.
> 
> The filesystem layout is designed to be very logical and easy for the 
> average user to understand.  That is a really great feature of GNUstep 
> (from the users perspective), which would be a shame to remove.

-- 
__Pascal_Bourguignon__
http://www.informatimago.com/
Do not adjust your mind, there is a fault in reality.