time for installusrbinperl...?
Jarkko Hietaniemi
We have new Mac OS X hints cooking (library directories will have the
Perl version in them, yea) (as everyone else has), but as a part of
that discussion Andy Dougherty pointed out that it may be time to
disable the 'installusrbinperl' default simply because so many UNIX
vendors already ship Perl, and not only for users' benefit, also for
the benefit of the OS, and if we come and stomp our (probably newer)
version of Perl over the vendor one, things go bang. Or at least puff.
(No, I don't think there's much point in trying to do heuristics (i.e.
guessing) of "whether the /usr/bin/perl is a vendor perl or just some
random older installation of Perl".)
--
Jarkko Hietaniemi <j...@iki.fi> http://www.iki.fi/jhi/ "There is this special
biologist word we use for 'stable'. It is 'dead'." -- Jack Cohen
Dan Kogai
> ....to default from "define" to "undef"?
I vote for it. I wonder how come no one ever proposed this.
> We have new Mac OS X hints cooking (library directories will have the
> Perl version in them, yea) (as everyone else has), but as a part of
> that discussion Andy Dougherty pointed out that it may be time to
> disable the 'installusrbinperl' default simply because so many UNIX
> vendors already ship Perl, and not only for users' benefit, also for
> the benefit of the OS, and if we come and stomp our (probably newer)
> version of Perl over the vendor one, things go bang. Or at least puff.
I always -Uinstallusrbinperl explicitly but shorter the Configure line
the more welcome. Let's give /usr to the OS and take
(/usr/local|/opt/|/usr/pkg).
I've been using perl and Unixen long enough to realize that both come
with enough ropes to hang your own self (and so I did so many times and
I'm lucky to be still alive) so easily and implicit -Dinstallusrbinperl
is definitely one of those.
Dan the Man with too many perls to configure-make-installed
Johan Vromans
Although -Uinstallusrbinperl may be yet another piece of rope. Which
perl you get then depends on whether /usr/local/bin (or whatever)
comes before or after /usr/bin in your PATH. I doubt systems (and
users) are consistent in placing /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin.
But I must admit that I do not see a really waterproof solution...
-- Johan
Joe McMahon
> On Thursday, Sep 19, 2002, at 05:58 Europe/Berlin, Jarkko Hietaniemi
>
> > ....to default from "define" to "undef"?
>
installing Perl 5, as a matter of fact). All the Perl 4 scripts broke and
people were Not Happy.
--- Joe M.
Kay röpke
On Thursday, Sep 19, 2002, at 05:58 Europe/Berlin, Jarkko Hietaniemi
wrote:
> ....to default from "define" to "undef"?
sounds very reasonable to me...I don't even dare to remember how often
I forgot -Uinstallusrbinperl - only
to notice at the very last keystroke before 'make instal<gasp here>' :-(
kay
Kurt D. Starsinic
> ....to default from "define" to "undef"?
Please. It's never caused me anything but grief.
- Kurt
H.Merijn Brand
> ....to default from "define" to "undef"?
>
> We have new Mac OS X hints cooking (library directories will have the
> Perl version in them, yea) (as everyone else has), but as a part of
> that discussion Andy Dougherty pointed out that it may be time to
> disable the 'installusrbinperl' default simply because so many UNIX
> vendors already ship Perl, and not only for users' benefit, also for
> the benefit of the OS, and if we come and stomp our (probably newer)
> version of Perl over the vendor one, things go bang. Or at least puff.
>
> (No, I don't think there's much point in trying to do heuristics (i.e.
> guessing) of "whether the /usr/bin/perl is a vendor perl or just some
> random older installation of Perl".)
Too late to veto - which I would not have done anyway :) - but I
wholeheartedly agree. Patch is in (17925/17926) and checked.
FWIW I have the 'installusrbinperl="$undef"' in my Policy.sh :)
--
H.Merijn Brand Amsterdam Perl Mongers (http://amsterdam.pm.org/)
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Abigail
This is why I typically create a separate account (usually called
'camel') which I use to install Perl with. If possible, I install it
in /opt/perl. /usr is for root, and all that can happen would I forget
a -Uinstallusrbinperl is an error message.
It also means that if I install modules from CPAN, I don't have to
run 'make install' as root.
Abigail