Fedora: FHS vs PYTHONPATH

[Gary E. Miller]

Yo Hal!

On Sun, 08 Oct 2017 23:01:49 -0700
Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net> wrote:

> >> My reading is that Fedora doesn't support /usr/local/,
> >> at least not the way we want/expect it to.  
> > Lost me.  What is expected/wanted?  Don't you expect Fedora to
> > respect the 40+ years of UNIX tradition and standards to led to the
> > current FHS?   
> 
> Their default python setup doesn't look for libraries in /usr/local/

Correct.  Always been that way, always should be that way, until the
user overrides it.  The user knows he has to add /usr/local/bin to
his PATH, not a big stretch to tell him to also add /usr/local/lib/pythonXX
to his PYTHONPATH.  An installation that installs partly in /usr/local/
and partly in /usr/ is schizophrenic.

> >> So we have 2 options:
> >>   Install in /usr/ (no local) and break FHS
> >>   Install in /usr/local/ and require PYTHONPATH to use it.  
> 
> > Yup.  But when the distros that have been waiting for NTPsec 1.0
> > start shipping NTPsec, it will be more than just ther FHS that gets
> > broken.  
> 
> Is that a suggestion to go with PYTHONPATH?

Suggestion?  No, I have a lot of better suggestions, but my track 
record getting Python people to take my suggestions is pretty bad.

I simply see PYTHONPATH as the only current way to respect a widely
used and frequently updated standard that embodies many decades
of best practice in UNIX administration.
	
> Should we add a trap to waf configure and/or install to check that 
> /usr/local/whatever is on the python search path?

There are a lot of things we could, and should do, if NTPssec goes
back to obeying UNIX best practice.  But I'm wasting my breath, we'll
have to wait until this inevitably causes problems before we fix it.

RGDS
GARY
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Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
	gem at rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588

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    "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it." - Lord Kelvin
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