Re: location of the configuration files

"scott.marlowe" <scott(dot)marlowe(at)ihs(dot)com> writes:

> But this isn't the same thing at all. Apache, when built from a tar ball,
> goes into /usr/local/apache/ and ALL it's configuration files are there.

Two comments:

1) Even in that case the config files go into /usr/local/apache/conf and the
other kinds of files like data logs and cache files, all go in other
subdirectories.

2) What you describe is only true if you configure with the default
"--with-layout=Apache". The naming should perhaps be a clue that this isn't
a conventional layout. If you configure with --with-layout=GNU you get the
conventional Unix layout in /usr/local, If you use --with-layout=RedHat you
get the conventional layout in /usr directly which is mainly useful for
distribution packagers.

Putting stuff in a subdirectory like /usr/local/apache or /usr/local/pgsql is
unfortunately a widespread practice. It does have some advantages over the
conventional layout in /usr/local/{etc,bin,...} directly. But the major
disadvantage is that users can't run programs without adding dozens of entries
to their paths, can't compile programs without dozens of -L and -I lines, etc.

GNU autoconf script makes it pretty easy to configure packages to work either
though, and /usr/local is the purview of the local admin. As long as it's easy
to configure postgres to install "properly" with --prefix=/usr/local it won't
be any more of an offender than lots of other packages like apache, kde, etc.

Though I'll mention, please make it $prefix/etc not $prefix/conf. No need to
be gratuitously non-standard on an arbitrary name, and no need to pollute
/usr/local with multiple redundant directories.

--
greg