unregistered files/modules

paul beard paulbeard at gmail.com
Tue Oct 9 23:14:15 PDT 2007


On 10/9/07, William Davis <frstan at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> On Oct 10, 2007, at 1:11 AM, David Epstein wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Ryan Schmidt-24 wrote:
> >>
> >> A-ha! Revelation! You have things in /opt/local that did not come
> >> from MacPorts!...[snip]...
> >>
> >> MacPorts likes to be in almost complete control of its prefix, likes
> >> to know what's in it. (It's fine to keep some config files there, but
> >> having other software there that MacPorts doesn't know about is not
> >> ok.) Paul's advice is good -- move /opt/local out of the way.
> >> However, you cannot move a directory into itself. So, try "mv /opt/
> >> local /opt/local-old"
> >>
> >
> > I'll move /opt/local aside, as you and Paul Beard suggest.
> >
> > But I have the impression that quite a number of non-macports
> > packages want
> > to be placed in /opt/local, and even do so without asking
> > permission. So
> > this could conflict with what you say about MacPorts wanting to keep
> > /opt/local/ to itself. I have certainly been advised by people who
> > know a
> > lot more about software than I do, that downloaded software should
> > go into
> > /opt/local/.
> > David.Epstein at warwick.ac.uk
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/unregistered-
> > files-modules-tf4586448.html#a13129554
> > Sent from the MacPorts - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
> >
>
> David could you be conflating /opt/local and /usr/local . Are you
> sure your friends "who know a lot" didnt tell you to put downloads
> in /usr/local?

Actually, /opt is an accepted convention for optional items. I think
it evolved for stuff like precompiled binaries, to differentiate them
from home-rolled stuff that lived in /usr/local

I think moving /opt/local aside and starting a-fresh makes the most
sense. If you then add anything by hand (ie, outside the MacPorts
framework) you'll know if it collides with something you already have.
it's when you have different people mucking about in the same place
where you have problems like what you have experienced.

-- 
Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/
<paulbeard at gmail.com/paulbeard at mac.com>


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