Just annotations of little "how to's", so I know I can find how to do something I've already done when I need to do it again, in case I don't remember anymore, which is not unlikely. Hopefully they can be useful to others, but I can't guarantee that it will work, or that it won't even make things worse.
Windows-like folder organization for binaries and libraries through symbolic links?
Posted 11-25-2011 at 03:28 PM by the dsc
Just another of those things I catch myself wondering sometimes, but I don't think that are important enough for the forums.
What if linux had folders for each program, more or less like on windows, but still had its "grab-bag" folders for libraries and whatever that may be used for more than one program, but instead of using it through a "$path", it had a symlink within the program's own folder?
Or perhaps it could use by default through something like "$path", but just in case you want to tweak the program a little bit you could place different versions of whatever in that folder (those would be prioritary), instead of having something like /opt, which seems to me a bit more complicated to do and tweak.
But I don't know really, perhaps that's just dumb, useless and gross. It would at least require a major re-planning of the whole folder structure standard, which is a good reason not to do it already I guess, it's not like not having it is hindering something very important. There's a linux distro that is attempting to do something more or less like it I guess, I don't know if it's "exactly" like I've described though.
What if linux had folders for each program, more or less like on windows, but still had its "grab-bag" folders for libraries and whatever that may be used for more than one program, but instead of using it through a "$path", it had a symlink within the program's own folder?
Or perhaps it could use by default through something like "$path", but just in case you want to tweak the program a little bit you could place different versions of whatever in that folder (those would be prioritary), instead of having something like /opt, which seems to me a bit more complicated to do and tweak.
But I don't know really, perhaps that's just dumb, useless and gross. It would at least require a major re-planning of the whole folder structure standard, which is a good reason not to do it already I guess, it's not like not having it is hindering something very important. There's a linux distro that is attempting to do something more or less like it I guess, I don't know if it's "exactly" like I've described though.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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Yeah, Gobolinux. I tried it during my distrohopping days.Quote:There's a linux distro that is attempting to do something more or less like it I guess, I don't know if it's "exactly" like I've described though.
http://www.gobolinux.org/Posted 11-29-2011 at 01:35 PM by brianL 
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Using symlinks like that would certainly be possible, but there would have to be a codebase handling the logic of "what if the target is removed? Remove the link, too!" so it didn't get insanely inconsistent.Code:
$ mkdir test{1,2} $ touch test1/file1 $ ln -s test1/file1 test2/link1 $ ls -lh test* test1: total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 user user 0B Dec 2 16:47 file1 test2: total 8 lrwxr-xr-x 1 user user 11B Dec 2 16:48 link1 -> test1/file1 $ rm test1/file1 $ ls -lh test* test1: test2: total 8 lrwxr-xr-x 1 user user 11B Dec 2 16:48 link1 -> test1/file1 $ cat test2/link1 cat: test2/link1: No such file or directory $ echo "omg" > test1/file1 $ cat test2/link1 cat: test2/link1: No such file or directory
Not saying it *can't* be done, but it'd be a huge messy stinkpile cluster**** if not handled very carefully.Posted 12-02-2011 at 05:02 PM by rocket357
