Re: make distcheck fails for simple Makefile.am

[Roger Leigh]

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Alexandre Duret-Lutz <address@hidden> writes:

>>>> "Roger" == Roger Leigh <address@hidden> writes:
>
>  Roger> It's often the case that a package installs files in locations picked
>  Roger> up by configure.  e.g. in gimp-print the CUPS PPD files get installed
>  Roger> in `cups-config --datadir`, and the drivers in `cups-config
>  Roger> --serverbin`/filter.  'make distcheck' has never worked because of
>  Roger> this.
>
> The FAQ entry `Hard-Coded Install Paths' has some suggestions.

Thanks.  I read this, but I still don't think this is the correct
solution.  I can see this would work well for a user-extensible
program, such as the GIMP, which has system and user plugin and module
directories.

For system-level programs, there is only one install location.  In the
case of CUPS, the directories for data, backend binaries and filter
binaries are fixed.  Being able to specify an alternate location with
configure is pointless: the locations specified with the -config
script are the only useful locations on the system.  Any other
location will result in a non-functional program.

In the case of programs using Linux-PAM (libpam), /etc/pam.d and
/etc/security are the only places you could install authentication
service configuration files.  It doesn't make sense to have any other
place for e.g. SSH configuration, and it would be a security issue to
boot.  Even if a user builds their own SSH, it will still need to look
there, even if different --prefix options were used: the libpam
library has this hardcoded for security.

These are certainly rare cases, but it would be nice if automake could
cater for them.

I read distdir.am, and saw the comment:

## Make sure the package has proper DESTDIR support (we could not test this
## in the previous install/installcheck/uninstall test, because it's reasonable
## for installcheck to fail in a DESTDIR install).

I can see the rationale here, but it would be nice to be able to do it
all the same if requested (I haven't written any installcheck stuff,
so it can't fail).


Regards,
Roger

- -- 
Roger Leigh
                Printing on GNU/Linux?  http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
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