[arch-general] Custom libexecdir not recommended for gnome

[Lukáš Jirkovský]

On 1 July 2012 22:17, Clemens Buchacher <drizzd at aon.at> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to bring to your attention the discussion surrounding
> gnome-shell/networkmanager bug #679212 (NetworkManager VPN secrets:
> NetworkAgent internal error):
>
>     https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679212
>
> A fix for this particular bug is under way. The cause for the bug was
> Arch Linux's use of different libexecdirs for gnome-shell and
> networkmanager plugins (/usr/lib/gnome-shell and
> /usr/lib/networkmanager, respectively), instead of the default
> /usr/libexec. This is in accordance with Arch Packaging Standards:
>
>     "Avoid using /usr/libexec/ for anything. Use /usr/lib/${pkgname}/
>     instead." [1]
>
> What is the motivation for this rule? In response to the above bug
> report, a gnome-shell dev says that he "could consider this weird
> libexecdir setting a distribution problem." Since this seems to be an
> unusual setting, I suspect that there might still be many more bugs
> lurking around for which Arch Linux plays beta tester. Indeed, this is
> not the first time that I am having trouble with Arch Linux packages
> using custom installation directories [2].
>
> Maybe it's not such a big deal and it's just me having some tough luck
> (2 events do not make a good statistic). But expectations upstream seem
> to contradict the Arch Linux rule, so I wanted to bring it up for
> discussion.
>
> Clemens
>
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Packaging_Standards#Package_etiquette
> [2] http://gnu-octave-repository.2306053.n4.nabble.com/geometry-1-4-0-cannot-handle-installation-prefixes-td4463998.html


libexec is not part of FHS, so I would say it's gnome guys who should fix that.

Lukas