Re: Hurd FS hierarchy (was Re: LD_LIBRARY_PATH troubles)

[Richard Kreuter]

On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 07:56:31PM +0100, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
> The following things need to change in the FSH itself:
> 3.1 Prohibiting creating of subdirectories of the root filesystem is
> too restrictrive, it should be discouraged

  Skip a couple of paragraphs down.

<Thomas Bushnell has already commented on some intervening fixes.>

> 6.2  GNU
> 
> This is the annex for the GNU operating system.
> 
> The GNU system is special compared to other UNIX-like operating
> systems in the way it treats the filesystem namespace. The filesystem
> namespace is very flexible, you can do anything with it what you
> want. That's why it is reasonable to specify where you should find
> directories and files, but not the way those directories and files
> should get there.
> 
> 6.2.x  / : The Root Filesystem
> 
> It's allowed to create a new subdirectory of the root filesystem by
> the distribution creator or user.
> 
  How about the following:

  "On a GNU system, the contents of a directory listing need not
reside on a single volume; therefore directories may be created in the
root directory of a system, though the size of the bootstrap
filesystem should be kept to a minimum."

  I assume I'm using the term 'bootstrap filesystem' correctly here.
Is this term acceptable for policy use?

> /hurd contains the Hurd server binaries. Servers with .static appended
> to their name must be statically linked servers, servers without
> .static appended should be dynamic linked servers.

  Is this the correct specification?  That is: .static can be used to
indicate staticaly linked binaries, while the lack of .static need not
imply dynamic linkage.

  Also, perhaps the first line should read, "/hurd contains the Hurd
server binaries provided by the distributor" (to distinguish these
from third-party Hurd servers, when there are some).  Say, the /hurd
directory should contain only 'trusted' servers, or somesuch.


> 6.2.x  /usr/X11R6 : X Window System, Version 11 Release 6
> 
> This directory should not be used. Instead the X Window System should
> be placed in /usr.

  I thought it was: 'for each directory <foo> in X11R6, the contents
of that directory should be placed in /usr/<foo>/X11, if /usr/foo
exists when X is not installed, or /usr, if /usr/foo doesn't exist.'
This is Debian policy for non-imake built systems; should GNU adopt
it?

Richard