Application Directories

[Calum]

http://rox.sourceforge.net/appdirs.php3

what do you think of this concept?

is it nice or naff? sounds like the way 'program files' is in windows, but with some improvements. phoenix already comes in this format, and so do a few others although they are usually made available as normal style rpms that install into normal directories too.

what do you think anyway?

[dishawjp]

Calum,

Actually it sounds more like DOS than Windows...

DOS would put all a program's files into a single directory, with or without subdirectories, and if you wanted to delete the entire program, it was a simple "deltree directory_name". At least once DOS 5 came out. Before that it was a bit more work. In Linux it would be a just-as-simple "rm -rf directory_name". In Windows, even though many of the files are in the C:\progra~1\directory_name directory by default, lots of other files are plastered all over your hard drive, and even worse, .dll files are overwritten with no warning or notice and, of course, your registry is hammered on. Once I learned a bit about Linux I was a bit disappointed to find that it installed so many files in so many places. I don't know, but I do hope that the Linux "rpm -e program_name" does a better job than the Windows uninstall usually does, but am still not experienced enough with Linux to know that for sure yet.

I kind of like it. If it doesn't open back doors for hackers or create permissions difficulties it could be a good thing. I think that I'll sit back for a while before changing anything yet, but if it is safe and can be perfected, it would be one more reason to switch from Windows to Linux.

Just my $.02

Jim

[Calum]

in my opinion, all of what you just said is spot on. i don't see much gain in doing programs this way other than convenience of a person trying to figure out the filesystem. also it would be a godsend for anything that has been installed from source, where you cannot use rpm to uninstall it. i installed rox from source for instance, and now i want to uninstall it and install a slackpack i found of it. luckily rox adheres to this directory principle more or less and all its directories are in /usr/local nice and easily marked as what they are. i don't know why i didn't use checkinstall actually, i usually use that for non installpkg installations nowadays. anyway, that's another topic.

[TheQuirk]

A lot of decent programs allow you to uninstall--for example, gaim.

Simple do "./configure" and "make uninstall", and you're done. You can also do ./configure --prefix=/opt, see all the directories the program used, and then remove them yourself. Not too hard.