Re: Autoconf test for site scheme files

[Greg Troxel]

Jon Wilson <address@hidden> writes:

> Using ubuntu, apt installs packages under /usr.  When I find something
> that either isn't up to date enough or doesn't exist in the ubuntu
> repos, I build it from source.  In that case, I either install to /opt
> or to /usr/local.  Sometimes this includes packages which want to
> install guile modules (currently, it includes guile!).  I try to keep
> /usr untouched except by apt, but it does make sense to have these
> modules in a `site' directory.
>
> For instance, I have guile-lib installed from the ubuntu package to
> /usr/share/guile/site, and I have guile-gdbm installed to
> /usr/local/share/guile/site.  I think this constitutes a pragmatic
> (although perhaps not good?) reason to have two site dirs.

Sure, this makes sense - the problem is that people use the word site
for different things.  Long ago, on a 4.2 system, we had /usr/site and
/usr/local.  /usr/site was for the group of 15 machines (a lot of money
back then!), all synced from one.  /usr/local was really for the machine.

Note that /usr/local isn't necessarily a good choice because on FreeBSD
the packaging system puts things there.  (I'm not saying it's a problem
in your case.)

In the present case, you're using prefix to separate package-managed and
local software.  I agree; I have base system (NetBSD) in /usr,
pkgsrc-managed packages in /usr/pkg and my own stuf f in /usr/y0.

I think it's perfectly sensible to have things in various prefixes for
separation by maintenance method.  What's needed is an /etc/prefixes
file, or something, that many programs can read to construct their
default search path.  Unfortunately this is messier because different
systems have different hierarchy rules (e.g., /usr/pkg/info vs
/usr/local/share/info), but in the guile case it's ok.

So, what do you do to get the various code loaded?  symlink stuff in
/opt into /usr?  Adjust load-path?

Also, I'm curious why you don't just update the source package yourself
and build it.  In pkgsrc I often just change version numbers in
makefiles and build.  But I have commit privs, so it isn't wasted work,
and pkgsrc has differet stability rules.