[PLUG] A net admin question

Paul Heinlein heinlein at attbi.com
Sat Apr 12 21:15:02 UTC 2003


On Sat, 12 Apr 2003, Rich Shepard wrote:

> If two of us are working simultaneously -- on different data files,
> obviously -- then it needs to execute twice, no?

Right. If a large portion of the app's functionality comes from shared
libraries, however, then the amount of memory needed for the second
instance is relatively low.

In fact, I'd be really surprised if even your lowest-powered 
workstation couldn't support multiple users working at the same time.

> In this case it comes as a RPM package. But, the package installs
> into /usr/bin.

Hmm. I guess I don't get it. What's the hassle of doing 'rpm -F' on 
two machines. It sounds like a really easy solution to the problem.

> As a naive, non-professional SysAdmin I would like to have all
> end-user apps optionally installed either into /usr/local or /opt
> (if such a partition exists).

For simple binaries, that's easy to do. rpm supports installation in 
non-default paths via the --relocate option.

Some apps, however, have a difficult time with relocation; just about 
any package that installs stuff into /etc falls into that boat.

There's a long discussion to be had about the merits of system
installation versus completely modular installation -- but I'm too
tired right now to launch it...

--Paul Heinlein <heinlein at attbi.com>





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