[arch-general] Custom libexecdir not recommended for gnome

[Tom Gundersen]

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 6:53 AM, Lukáš Jirkovský <l.jirkovsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

As far as I know, Fedora/RedHat are the only ones to use this
location. Unless I'm mistaken there is a push internally there to stop
using it and instead use /usr/lib/<pkgname> like everyone else.

Aside from that, it really makes no sense to distinguish between the
two folders, it is perfectly possible to have binaries that should
belong to both.

-t