this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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I know that a lot of what Nix does is working around its break from FHS, but I can imagine there are still things that seep through. Are there any unsolvable problems due to this?

I saw on this post that it is possible to use FHS on Nix. Does this solve all potential issues then?

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[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

It's just that most (if not all) build system in the source code package would assume some level of FHS compliance.

For example, they would install:

  • executables under /bin /usr/bin
  • libraries under /lib or /usr/lib
  • sysconfigs under /etc
  • manpages under /usr/share/man
  • and so on...

These build systems would include options to change these, but you'd then have to change all these values to adapt to nix structure. While it's all been done by the nix package maintainers, you'd have to do all that if you're to come up with a new package.

In the FHS compliant distros, the maintainers wouldn't need to change anything since these values are already set to the values they want (there are actually minor details they'd change, but that's another topic).