[Pkg-xen-devel] Bug#536174: Bug#536174: xen-utils-3.4: pygrub searches for filesystem plugins at the wrong path

[Thomas Goirand]

Anders Kaseorg wrote:
> Furthermore, users who read the upstream Xen documentation (#508139), as 
> well as programs that try to use the Xen binaries (#481105) or libraries 
> (#507186), get thrown off by the alternate layout.
> 
> Is there actually a use case for installing multiple versions of Xen on 
> the same system?  Perhaps it is time to reconsider them and use a layout 
> closer to upstream’s?  Or if not, perhaps the patches can be sent upstream 
> and integrated as a supported configure option, so that Debian does not 
> need to maintain an unsupported layout separately?
> 
> Anders

I cannot agree more with the above.

Related to the above also: I even asked the Xen team the request to add
the following 2 symlinks, that would have solve many issues in numerous
software:

ln -s /etc/alternatives/xen-default /usr/lib/xen
ln -s /usr/lib/xen-default/lib/python/xen \
/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/xen

I was told that it was a stupid thing, and my bug was tagged "wontfix".
I'd like to understand exactly WHY the packager took this decision.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, and also, I don't think that being
a maintainer gives you the rights to decide for everyone using the
distribution. This was a very big concern for us, and I was really
disappointed to see the reaction of the Debian Xen team, not considering
the report, and being quite unfriendly.

Also, if there's no /usr/lib/xen, what is the point of having a
/etc/alternatives/xen-default? I'd like to understand.

Thomas