Default installation prefix for Mercurial (primary MacOSX)

sierkb sierkb at gmx.de
Tue Dec 29 13:22:09 CST 2009


Currently Mercurial is installed on MacOSX (and other Unices?) below /
usr/local, the binary is placed in /usr/local/bin. This is a common
and know place on Unix systems for local systemwide software installed
by admin or root.
Wouldn't it be smarter to choose prefix=/usr/local/hg (the binary
would then be located in /usr/local/hg/bin) instead of the current /
usr/local (and so spreading the files among the directories of /usr/
local) in favour of a more coherent installation below simply one hg
directory?

Look for instance at how Git, MySQL and ClamXav install their files
and directories below /usr/local. They have /usr/local/git, /usr/local/
mysql (with a symlink to the actual version) and /usr/local/clamXav as
their prefix.
It would be a lot more easier to maintain such an installation, and it
would be more clearly arranged.

What is your opinion to that prefix proposal, which may be also used/
preferred per default on other unix-like installations like Linux,
Free-/Open-/NetBSD?

What would be the con(s) against such a proposal? In my opinion, the
pro(s) would be obvious...

Regards,
Sierk


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