hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 17, 2025 22:15 UTC (Sun) by bluca (subscriber, #118303)
In reply to: hope not tied to SystemD by NYKevin
Parent article: Finding a successor to the FHS

> as it makes all non-systemd distros inherently non-compliant with the spec

No? The spec is about directories. Tools are not part of it, they are useful ancillary information. The spec is called "Linux Filesystem Hierarchy" not "tools to print directories"

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 3:39 UTC (Mon) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (5 responses)

The spec says that the only way to discover the location of /usr/lib/arch-id is to run a systemd command, as I said upthread[1]. No alternative is provided, so on systems that lack systemd, there is simply no specification of where this directory is located or how to find it. The same also goes for the .../lib/arch-id subdirectories in other parts of the filesystem.

[1]: https://lwn.net/Articles/1034093/

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 8:02 UTC (Mon) by gdiscry (subscriber, #91125) [Link]

The spec says that arch-id in $libdir is an architecture tuple:

The architecture identifier to use is defined on Multiarch Architecture Specifiers (Tuples) list.

The issue is that some distributions do not use that path:

Legacy locations of $libdir are /usr/lib/, /usr/lib64/.

Therefore, systemd-path is currently one way to query the path of $libdir at runtime across distributions that use systemd.

You could also use the first existing directory:

/usr/lib/arch-id/
/usr/lib64/ (if your architecture is x86_64)
/usr/lib/

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 8:49 UTC (Mon) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link] (3 responses)

> The spec says that the only way to discover the location of /usr/lib/arch-id is to run a systemd command

No, it doesn't say it's the only way. It provides that as a way to do that, which works in 99.999% of the cases.

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 17:30 UTC (Mon) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

> No, it doesn't say it's the only way.

Can we please drop the silly word pedantry? If the spec describes one and only one way to do something, and gives not the slightest hint that that way will not work in all circumstances, then supporting that method is a requirement of the spec. I'm baffled that you are continuing to argue this point.

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 17:43 UTC (Mon) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link] (1 responses)

Once again, there is no requirement for any particular tool, it's just a description of a hierarchy of directories, and that's the end of it. Any requirement for any particular tool is a misreading, intentional or not.

hope not tied to SystemD

Posted Aug 18, 2025 17:46 UTC (Mon) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link]

I think neither of you are likely to change each other's minds at this point. Let's leave the discussion here, please.