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6.3.2.3. Symlink Style Package Management
This is a variation of the previous package management technique. Each package is installed similar to the previous scheme. But instead of making the symlink, each file is symlinked into the /usr hierarchy. This removes the need to expand the environment variables. Though the symlinks can be created by the user to automate the creation, many package managers have been written using this approach. A few of the popular ones include Stow, Epkg, Graft, and Depot.
The installation needs to be faked, so that the package thinks that it is installed in /usr though in reality it is installed in the /usr/pkg hierarchy. Installing in this manner is not usually a trivial task. For example, consider that you are installing a package libfoo-1.1. The following instructions may not install the package properly:
./configure --prefix=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 make
make install
./configure --prefix=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 make
make install
The installation will work, but the dependent packages may not link to libfoo as you would expect. If you compile a package that links against libfoo, you may notice that it is linked to /usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1/lib/libfoo.so. 1 instead of /usr/lib/libfoo.so.1 as you would expect. The correct approach is to use the DESTDIR strategy to fake installation of the package. This approach works as follows:
./configure --prefix=/usr make
make DESTDIR=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 install
./configure --prefix=/usr make
make DESTDIR=/usr/pkg/libfoo/1.1 install
Most packages support this approach, but there are some which do not. For the non-compliant packages, you may either need to manually install the package, or you may find that it is easier to install some problematic packages into /opt.