What should I do about /opt/freeware ?
David Kirkby
note it creates the directory /opt/freeware. I've also noticed that
one of the site that has binaries also writes to /opt/freeware. I can
see that filling up very quickly if I'm not careful.
What's the best way to put have a directory /opt/freeware where I can
dump a load of stuff, without making my life hard if I need to restore
the OS. It gives me some confort knowing the OS is on two disks, and
nothing else is on them disks. Clearly if I leave things as they are,
two propblems will arrise
* If I need to restore the OS, it will overwrite /opt/freeware
* I suspect I'll want to put to put a sufficient number of binaries
in /opt/freeware, that a 9 GB disk will soon fill up.
I wish places people distributing binaries would put them in a
different place to where the OS system uses.
One option I did consider was simply mouting a file system /opt/
freeware on /opt, so the OS files are hidden. Then if the system need
to be restored, the OS files would be available, and my other disk
would have to be mounted manually.
Dave
Uli Link
> I've installed rootvg on a pair of 9 GB SCSI disks (mirrored), but I
> note it creates the directory /opt/freeware. I've also noticed that
> one of the site that has binaries also writes to /opt/freeware. I can
> see that filling up very quickly if I'm not careful.
Most RPM packages for AIX install under /opt.
For e.g.
<http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/releases/2.0.8/contrib/seamonkey-2.0.8-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm>
The best Webbrowser you can get precompiled for your F50 ;-)
IBM's Firefox 3.5.2 won't install on a 32bit only machine :-(
If you want to create RPM packages you should create you RPM build dir
in a different user's home directory. Building RPMs as root isn't a good
idea on AIX as on any other platform using RPM.
The default RPM buildroot on AIX is /opt/freeware/src/packages.
> What's the best way to put have a directory /opt/freeware where I can
> dump a load of stuff, without making my life hard if I need to restore
> the OS.
It's part of rootvg, so it is stored/restored with a default mksysb/mkcd.
If you install a full GNOME and/or KDE you may need not more than 2 or
3G for /opt.
--
ULi
David Kirkby
<VonRechts.NachLi...@usenet.arcornews.de> wrote:
> David Kirkby schrieb:
>
> > I've installed rootvg on a pair of 9 GB SCSI disks (mirrored), but I
> > note it creates the directory /opt/freeware. I've also noticed that
> > one of the site that has binaries also writes to /opt/freeware. I can
> > see that filling up very quickly if I'm not careful.
>
> Most RPM packages for AIX install under /opt.
> For e.g.
> The best Webbrowser you can get precompiled for your F50 ;-)
> IBM's Firefox 3.5.2 won't install on a 32bit only machine :-(
I only want to use this as a server, so I'm not bothered about a
browser, though I think one might be advantageus to read the
documentation - I'm not sure about that. But in general, I'm not going
to use this machine for browsing the web.
> If you want to create RPM packages you should create you RPM build dir
> in a different user's home directory. Building RPMs as root isn't a good
> idea on AIX as on any other platform using RPM.
> The default RPM buildroot on AIX is /opt/freeware/src/packages.
>
> > What's the best way to put have a directory /opt/freeware where I can
> > dump a load of stuff, without making my life hard if I need to restore
> > the OS.
I've just installed bash, and found it as /opt/freeware/bin/bash,
which is the same directory as IBM used.
> It's part of rootvg, so it is stored/restored with a default mksysb/mkcd.
> If you install a full GNOME and/or KDE you may need not more than 2 or
> 3G for /opt.
I don't kneed that, but I'd feel a lot happier if programs did not
install things in the same directory used by the system.
Most open-source software I've come across either installs in /usr/
local, or in something like /opt/csw, which is where all the Blastwave
Solaris stuff goes. But to put binaries in a directory where parts of
the OS reside seems a bad idea to me.
> ULi
Dave
Tony
>I've just installed bash, and found it as /opt/freeware/bin/bash,
>which is the same directory as IBM used.
Not sure what you mean by this. There is no 'standard' AIX version of
bash. The one provided by IBM *is* the freeware one. But it'll never get
patched by an AIX TL/SP.
Unless I'm missing something fundamental (which I often am).
--
Tony Evans
Saving trees and wasting electrons since 1993
blog -> http://perceptionistruth.com/
books -> http://www.bookthing.co.uk/
[ anything below this line wasn't written by me ]
David Kirkby
> In comp.unix.aix, David Kirkby <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
>
> >I've just installed bash, and found it as /opt/freeware/bin/bash,
> >which is the same directory as IBM used.
>
> Not sure what you mean by this. There is no 'standard' AIX version of
> bash. The one provided by IBM *is* the freeware one. But it'll never get
> patched by an AIX TL/SP.
>
> Unless I'm missing something fundamental (which I often am).
> --
> Tony Evans
On AIX 5.3 at least, IBM did not include bash. So I had to install
bash from some web site. But that put it in the same directory (/opt/
freeware) as what IBM do. for some programs (gzip etc). That seems a
bad idea IMHO. If the system gets screwed up, and I need to reinstall
AIX, it will overwrite anything I've put in /opt/freeware with its own
code. So I have to reinstall any programs which installed themselves
in /opt/freeware.
Bash happened to be the first example of a program I needed to
install. But there are no doubt many others. I don't like the idea of
them being in /opt/freeware.
* They take up space on the rootvg, where I don't have a huge amount
of space - only 9 GB in total.
* In the event of me needing to reinstall the OS, they will get
overwritten.
Dave
Tony
I'm clearly being thick because I still don't understand the issue sorry.
IBM doesn't put any AIX software in /opt/freeware. It puts some open
source software in /opt/freeware. That open source software is entirely
optional and not part of AIX. Whether you put more of it in /opt/freeware
is your call, whether you put it in there from the IBM Linux Toolbox stuff
or not, is still your call.
Either way, it's not AIX and AIX will boot with it there or not (subject to
anything in /etc/inittab, /etc/rc.d, etc.)
The /opt/freeware filesystem, I presume, is part of rootvg, so if you take
a mksysb it'll get recovered as part of the backup. If you lost
everything, and do a fresh install, then AIX will put into /opt/freeware
whatever it normally does and you'll put the other stuff in you normally do
from whereever you normally get them.
I'm still struggling to see the issue?
Uli Link
> On AIX 5.3 at least, IBM did not include bash. So I had to install
> bash from some web site. But that put it in the same directory (/opt/
> freeware) as what IBM do. for some programs (gzip etc). That seems a
> bad idea IMHO. If the system gets screwed up, and I need to reinstall
> AIX, it will overwrite anything I've put in /opt/freeware with its own
> code. So I have to reinstall any programs which installed themselves
> in /opt/freeware.
I guess you installed "bash" by using a binary package.
The biggest advantages of using packaged software are
- you can reinstall the packages
- you can deinstall the packages
Nothing under /opt/freeware (excluding the rpm itself) is part of AIX.
The rpm itself was updated by applying a ML or TL from IBM.
But: You can deinstall/reinstall the rpm if all RPM packages are
deinstalled. If you don't like /opt/freeware, you can build your tools
using another --prefix configure flag ;-)
But if your software expects predepencies in weird locations instead of
the common ones, you will spend a lot of time with supporting your users.
For example:
I needed to build Python to build Mecurial. Mecurial needs a feature in
Python which needs Python build against a shared lib of bzip2.
More or less funny things happy when the archive members naming within
libbz2.a is slightly different. That's why such stuff resides at common
places with common naming conventions. And it was IBM (and Bull) who
initially created the packages for /opt/freeware and set the conventions.
There is no problem when others replace/update those packages with
drop-in replacements.
that's what I did for the needed GTK2 (and dependencies) updates and
that's is what Michael Perzl also always tries. And when I reported a
runtime incompatibility at IBM an updated and fixed RPM was released
within a week.
So try to use from /opt/freeware what is available first, if you need
something updated/newer an updated but compatible package should considered.
You won't see the problems when compiling/porting on your machine. The
problem will show up when you try to run the build on a different
machine. (Huh... where is GCC's libstdc++... for e.g???)
So /opt/freeware isn't part of AIX but is *the* location for stuff
shared amongst different programs that is not under "/usr".
Nothing bad about this, when only packaged software is installed there.
--
ULi