Re: managing multiple dir files

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 13.03.2008 um 13:24 schrieb Tyler Smith:

> I can fix
> that myself, of course, but is there something I can do so that I
> won't have to manually tweak the dir files everytime I install
> documentation from the repositories?

Check and correct their configure files or the files with directives  
how to build the package. I am using Fink on my Mac, which uses  
debian utilities to handle software packages. In their accompanying  
INFO files (not: TeX-Info) configure and compile options are  
recorded. By "localising" such a file and changing the options I can  
create and install the local version of that package – until it gets  
updated. This means that I have to install from source – which, in  
case of GCC 4.3, can take a whole day, 24 little hours ...

See how the build process works. Then decide where the (TeX-)INFO  
files are to be installed, looking into debian documentation on  
system layout? Then check which packages install into the wrong  
directory (and consider to write a bug report on each). Now see  
whether you can create a local variant. When building it has  
succeeded, you can remove the original one and then install your  
local variant. Finally purge all unnecessary and now old packages to  
regain disk space.

In the end there is manual work necessary. For some (faulty)  
packages, as another possible approach, it *might* work to uninstall  
them temporarily, and then create a sym-link from the wrong and now  
empty info directory, or better: instead of it, that points to  
correct info dir. Then it can work, that this sym-link is *not*  
overwritten and all additions are directed to the proper installation  
place. The update of the dir file will happen automatically and  
correctly with install-info.

--
Greetings

  Pete

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
                                – Erdős Pál