[egenix-users] The mxDateTime rpms are non-compliant with the Linux Standards Base

[Stanley A. Klein]

I don't know about the distutils default.  Perhaps all other Python rpm
packagers change from the default to /usr/share during rpm packaging.

I have Python 1.5 and 2.1, wxPython, and (I think) some other packages
installed on my system.  All of them automatically install in /usr/ahare.
To the best of my knowledge that is where Python packagers are supposed to
put their packages.  These packages are packaged in compliance with the
Linux Standards Base specification, which (I understand) may have clarified
or modified for Linux the definition of what is supposed to go into
/usr/share versus /usr/local.  (Essentially, all downloaded packages or
those supplied with distributions go into /usr/share.  I don't recall the
purpose assigned to /usr/local, except that it may be reserved for uniquely
local packages developed by the system administrator.)

mxDateTime is the only Python package installed on my system that I had to
fix because it installed in /usr/local.  (I fixed it by putting a link in
the appropriate site-packages directory in the /usr/share tree.)


Stan Klein


At 10:34 PM 8/31/2002 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>Stanley A. Klein wrote:
>> When I installed the rpm for mxDateTime, the package was installed in
>> /usr/local.  I'm running Red Hat 7.2, which complies with the Linux
>> Standards Base (LSB).  The LSB requires that packages similar to mxDateTime
>> install in /usr/share.  
>> 
>> When I tried to run GNU Enterprise, which uses mxDateTime, I got error
>> messages until I doscovered the problem and made a link from the directory
>> under /usr/local to the equivalent directory under /usr/share where Python
>> was looking for the files.
>> 
>> I would like to suggest that the packager either make the rpms compliant
>> with the LSB or include a README telling the user of the need to make the
>> link.  I suggest making LSB compliance the preferred approach because most
>> of the major distributions that use rpms are also LSB compliant.
>
>The egenix-mx-*.rpm archives are built using Python's distutils
>package and this defaults to installing into the Python
>installation in the /usr/local tree (this is also the
>default location of the RPMs of Python itself).
>
>AFAIK, you can relocate the packages to other locations
>using RPM command line options.
>
>I'm not really sure why you'd want to install them
>to /usr/share, though, because the packages depend on
>the Python installation and include binary shared libs
>which are certainly not machine independent (like the
>files you'd normalls install in /usr/share). Perhaps
>you have something else in mind here ?
>
>Thanks,
>-- 
>Marc-Andre Lemburg
>CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
>_______________________________________________________________________
>eGenix.com -- Makers of the Python mx Extensions: mxDateTime,mxODBC,...
>Python Consulting:                               http://www.egenix.com/
>Python Software:                    http://www.egenix.com/files/python/
>
>
>