Description of problem: Various font packages create absolute links in /etc/X11/fontpath.d/ like xorg-x11-fonts-misc:unscaled:pri=10 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled instead of linking to ../../../usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled Mount that over NFS on some subdirectory, or like anaconda does that during updates, and these will point into wrong places. Is that really intended? Besides 'rpmlint' is likely unhappy with that too. :-) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): xorg-x11-fonts-7.2-1.fc8
What, exactly, would be the point of using relative symlinks, given that the only directory they have in common is / ?
What, exactly, would be the point of using absolute symlinks. given that after mounting all of that on some subdirectory they will be pointing into wrong, possibly non-existent, locations? Probably not that important most of the time, with a possible exception of those few where that would handy, but what are costs? True, up to now paths listed in fs/config were absolute.
If you installed your fonts into a directory that you then unmounted, you've pretty much already asked for it to be broken. Relative symlinks aren't going to help you there. And they _have_ to be symlinks because that's how the code works. It calls readlink() to find the location, priority, and any other options. I guess I can see the point about anaconda installing off into space if you're upgrading and your runtime /usr is on NFS, but I suspect that's a problem with every other package that installs into /usr. Do we get that case right at all?
> but I suspect that's a problem with > every other package that installs into /usr. I am not sure about "every other". More and more rpm created links are relative and some were that way for a long time. I had an impression that rpmlint will complain otherwise and especially /usr/share/ should be ready to be mountable over NFS. OTOH those links in question are used when a system is running and not when you are upgrading it, right? All in all apparently not the most important issue but I thought that I better put a note in bugzilla anyway.
If we get an actual policy about symbolic links, then I'll be happy to revisit this. But at the moment, we don't, and (after light discussion with the installer team) anaconda should be restoring as much of your normal filesystem state as possible for upgrades, so I don't think it's even an issue there.