Re: [TCLUG:15556] Filesystem structures (was: [TCLUG:15481] Faeriedist)

[Dave Sherohman <esper@usinternet.com>]

Kevin Bullock said:
> Some Debian packages still use /usr/doc simply because Debian is in the
> process of moving to FHS from FSSTND (which also had solid standard
> locations for things, but had room for improvement, like most things). Note
> that you can do 'cd /usr/doc/<packagename>' for *any* package, even ones
> that have switched to FHS, because for ease-of-use during the transitional
> period, symlinks are placed in /usr/doc.

Actually, when installing packages recently, I've seen apt spitting out a lot
of 'Warning:  Files under /usr/doc are no longer supported' messages.
Apparently, they've decided to take away even that.

> And when I compare my path settings for my Linux box(en) to the settings for
> my account on St. John's Irix system, I suddenly develop great respect for
> the FHS. I haven't had to touch /etc/csh.login or /etc/profile since I
> installed (though I have, for minor tweaking, of course...).

Me neither.  Standards are a good thing.  However, when the standard says you
have to look in N places (man, info, /usr/doc, /usr/share/doc...) to find
information of a certain type, my appreciation of the standard decreases
exponentially as N increases.

Even if /usr/share/doc is the standard, /usr/doc just *feels* right to me.
First time I saw it, it clicked and made perfect sense.  I now know to go to
/usr/share/doc instead (or at least first), but it doesn't have that gut-level
'it makes sense' feel to it, even if we ignore the probability that /usr/doc
will continue to be used for 'non-shared' documentation, leaving poor users
and admins to try and deduce whether the documentation they're looking for is
considered to be 'shared' or not.

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