Filesystem Hierarchy

[rbellamy]

I note that the xbian Filesystem Hierarchy is sometimes compliant with the generic FHS and Debian's specific implementation of the FHS, and sometimes not. I'd like some insight into the thinking around the placement of binaries, logs and configuration.

The xbian-specific deployments of couchpotato, sickbeard, etc are stored in /usr/local/share, and the config for couchpotato is stored in /usr/local/etc. I've always thought that /usr/local was for me (the system administrator) when I custom install source "the debian way" and, for instance, /opt would be used for packages that fall outside that "debian way" or are just too much trouble to shoehorn into it.

Log files are in variously unusual places as well:
XBMC => /home/xbian/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log
NZBGet => /home/xbian/nzbget.log
CouchPotato => /usr/local/etc/couchpotato/logs/CouchPotato.log
etc....

I'd love to turn my understanding of this topic into a wiki page for the rest of the community - if I can get some understanding.

[mk01]

(3rd Jun, 2013 06:07 AM)rbellamy Wrote:  Log files are in variously unusual places as well:
XBMC => /home/xbian/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log
NZBGet => /home/xbian/nzbget.log
CouchPotato => /usr/local/etc/couchpotato/logs/CouchPotato.log
etc....

I'd love to turn my understanding of this topic into a wiki page for the rest of the community - if I can get some understanding.

this has nothing to do with the debian "way", but no guideline knowledge on our side.

of course the points you written should be fixed. rise an issue on github under particular repo please.

anyhow the decade old rules (which debian still follows and mixes with new approaches) should be followed and like:

non-distro packages with prefix /usr/local for binaries, I like to have all conf files in /etc/, service configs in /etc/default and logs under /var/log .

the xbmc is really specific, due to cross platform support they decided to have all inside users home as you see. this is not XBIAN's invention !

it;s the same on MacOS, linux, ATV (IOS) etc.

what is important, all xbian files starting from beta1 are distributed via .deb packages, so no untracked files should be left all over the system.

opt is on the contrary used and created by broadcom engineers for platform libs and bins.

[rbellamy]

I totally agree that the fact that the packages are distributed via .deb packages is incredibly important. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons I am focusing my attention on xbian.

Quote:the xbmc is really specific, due to cross platform support they decided to have all inside users home as you see. this is not XBIAN's invention !

I didn't realize this about xbmc - good to know.[/quote]

[mk01]

(3rd Jun, 2013 11:16 AM)rbellamy Wrote:  I totally agree that the fact that the packages are distributed via .deb packages is incredibly important. In fact, this is one of the primary reasons I am focusing my attention on xbian.

Quote:the xbmc is really specific, due to cross platform support they decided to have all inside users home as you see. this is not XBIAN's invention !

I didn't realize this about xbmc - good to know.

[/quote]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Userdata_folder
(if interested)