From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2001-03-25T12:16:26+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:13186] Advice on installation philosophy needed


Right now, the 'ri' package installs itself into

   site_ruby/ri/...      for .rb files and data files
   bindir/ri             the ri command

Akira Yamada is putting together a Debian package for ri (Thank you
very much!), and made the following suggestions:

1. Firstly, install ri into

      bindir       ri itself
      libdir/ri    the .rb files
      datadir/ri   the datafiles


   So, for a typical Ruby installation, you'd be installing into

      /usr/local/bin/ri
      /usr/local/lib/ri/ri.rb
      /usr/local/lib/ri/refdoc.rb
             :           :
      /usr/local/share/ri/Array
             :           :

   (currently, the .rb and data files would go into
      /usr/local/ruby/site_ruby/ri)


2. He also asked for the ability to add a preface to all the
   installation directories (his example was adding
   /var/tmp/package-build-root, so I assume this must be part of the
   Debian packaging process).


My question: should 'ri' and similar packages be installed in the
general system directory tree like this, or should they go in the Ruby 
tree as they are now? What are the advantages and disadvantages or
each? How can we make it easy for package maintainers, and also for
casual users? What are the issues?


Thanks


Dave


(ps. ri-0.7 is released, which fixes a stupid bug in the installation
of contrib files.)