uutils / uutils/coreutils

Making PROG_PREFIX a symlink option

Open
#8,029 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
24.1k
Forks
2k
Avg merge
1d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
365

Description

Arch Linux and Debian current package uutils differently:

  • Arch Linux installs them to /usr/bin/uu-* using PROG_PREFIX
  • Debian installs them to /usr/lib/cargo/bin/coreutils/ using BINDIR

The Debian approach has the benefit of allowing to edit $PATH to opt-into uutils. I wonder if, as a compromise, there could be a way to combine those two, so:

  • there's a folder that can be added to $PATH
  • the binaries are also symlinked from that folder to /usr/bin with a uu-* prefix so there's no breaking change

This could look like:

  • PREFIX=/usr
  • BINDIR=/usr/lib/cargo/bin
  • SYMLINKDIR=/usr/bin
  • PROG_PRFIX=uu-

This would install sort to:

  • /usr/lib/cargo/bin/sort
  • /usr/bin/uu-sort

There's currently users trying to build work-arounds (both of them removing system coreutils, risking their system becoming unbootable):

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing how PROG_PREFIX and BINDIR control installation and where command-line binaries are placed. Define the SYMLINKDIR behavior described in the issue, preserving the existing uu-* paths while also installing unprefixed binaries in the PATH-addable directory; done means both locations are supported without removing system coreutils.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
build-system, cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.