Re: Flattened GNUstep structure?

[Nicola Pero]

I'm only very slightly in favour of the flattened structure.

The main argument in favour of the deep directory structure seems to be
that it can be used to build multi-platforms executables.

But - since we are going to distribute packages using rpms and debs, my
question is - does this deep directory structure means we can build a
single rpm for different linux distributions ?  As far as I understand,
the answer is `no', because different linux distributions will have their
binaries all in the same dir ix86/gnu-linux/gnu-gnu-gnu-xgps (except ppc
which will have a different one) while I assume the binaries should be
different - possibly for differences in system libraries and so forth ?  
hhm - I don't know enough to answer - is it because the binaries are
different that people have different rpms for different distributions I
suppose ?  If it is not for this reason, then if we use our own same
layout inside /usr/GNUstep on all machines, we could perhaps make
different rpms for the core libraries, but then a single rpm <for
applications which interface to the system only using the core libraries>
for every linux distribution (with the same characteristics, such as same
major version of libc) would be enough ?

In any case, it seems to me that the deep directory structure does not
work for (or against) generating rpms which can run on multiple linux
intel distributions.

Certainly, debs have to be distributed separately simply because they are
debs and not rpms.

A binary package for windows can not anyway be distributed as an rpm, so
windows binary distributions have to be shipped again as separate
packages.

The other reason to have deep directory structure is to have multiple
backends on the same machine.  I think this is quite useful but it is an
advanced feature - core developers will want to do that, but they will
have everything installed from cvs anyway, and adding an option to
configure should not be a problem for them.

In general, I don't see deep structure as a big advantage, while it's a
bit clumsy to work with for the beginner, so, if we are trying to make our
system very simple to install and start with to make it available to a
wider audience, I'm slightly in favour of not making it the default.

On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Adam Fedor wrote:

> Before I start making a lot of RPMs and other distributions, I want to
> ask for advice on the default layout of the GNUstep directory structure.
> Richard recently implemented a flattened structure (without the
> cpu/os/library-combo directories) due to several complaints about the
> difficulty of finding files in such a deep directory structure.
> 
> To-date he hasn't received any feedback about it. The question is, if we
> are trying to attract new developers/new users, what whould be the most
> useful directory layout for them (deep or flattened)?
> 
> Whatever we/I decide will become the default for all GNUstep packages
> (although anyone would be free to change it for themselves).
>