testing consistency

Joe Buck jbuck@synopsys.com
Thu Sep 11 17:08:00 GMT 1997


Mike Meissner writes:
> Speaking as a Linux user, I tend to prefer it not be installed into /usr
> unless I explicitly add --prefix=/usr.

I agree.  The Linux user who downloads and builds egcs should be able to
have it co-exist with the "official" gcc version that is installed in
/bin.  We should not assume that the default operation is to replace the
standard compiler.

In any case, I specify --prefix every time I build a GNU tool; it's
no big deal to add --prefix=/usr when it is appropriate.

Anyway, we should not be encouraging naive Linux users (users who find
--prefix hard to understand) to immediately install the first egcs release
as their only official compiler.

> and in fact when I started
> using Linux, I tended to get burned by it installing itself into /usr
> and the assembler and friends installing themself into /usr/local, until
> I started using --prefix all of the time.

Yes, this is the main problem: the default for --prefix should be the
same for all tools, and /usr/local is as good as any.





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