>>> I understand why this is being said, but this is like saying all
>>> that work to support DESTDIR in the source Makefiles is all for
>>> naught.
>> Hardly for naught.  I found it useful just recently, when making a
>> crash-recovery boot disk.  I mounted the new disk and did a "make
>> install" in my source tree with DESTDIR pointing to [the new disk].
> This, of course, presupposes that you have an entire successful build
> in /usr/src to begin with in order to do this.

Tell me about it.  There were about three weeks during which I was
unable to sup and/or unable to build the result.  Quite irritating.
I'm glad to have gotten a source tree which builds, finally.  (Mostly,
at least; there's still an irritating problem on the sun3...I'm looking
at it.)

> If I have install a small part of the -current system - especially
> something as vital as the *compiler* - to get everything to go, then
> I see little point in trying to use DESTDIR.

Yeah, for what you want, there is little point.

> In short, it seems a shame that such a nicely-implemented mechanism
> has to trip over a source file or three when used for its presumably
> main purpose.

I know what I use DESTDIR for; I also have some idea what you would
like to use it for.  It does what I want.  It doesn't do what you want.
I don't presume to know what whoever came up with the thing intended
its main purpose to be....

					der Mouse

			    mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu