Re: improve INSTALL contents (was: Core-utils 7.2; building only 'su')

[Keith Marshall]

On Wednesday 13 May 2009 14:22:25 Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> The problem is if you pass --bindir=/foo to configure, and
> then do `make install prefix=/bar', the files installed in bindir
> will be installed in /foo, and not /bar as the user might have
> exepcted; this is why passing prefix to `make install' is a bad
> idea.

On the contrary, it is why configuring an esoteric installation 
hierarchy, divorcing various paths from $prefix, *without* proper 
up-front attention to staging requirements, is a bad idea.

If you *must* indulge in such practice, at least do it so you have 
a built-in mechanism to relocate at install time, *without* the need 
to fall back on an ill-conceived DESTDIR kludge to drag you out of 
the mire; (and it is mire of your own making, it must be said).

  configure --bindir="'${alt_prefix}'/foo" ...

Sure, DESTDIR may be handy for the lazy, but please don't promote it 
as the ultimate panacea; it isn't!  The GNU Coding Standards don't 
even *require* it to be supported, and in the real world, it may be 
found to be deficient, (as it is, on the most popular and widely 
deployed desktop operating system in use today).

-- 

Regards,
Keith.