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What's the purpose of the experimental software account?
To host software that we would like to have available system-wide but due to resource constraints or version conflicts cannot install locally on each machine. |
The resource constraint is often time: it takes time to install software locally on each machine. But it may also be that a stable release version of software is installed locally on each machine, and a bleeding-edge beta version is available through this account. The main advantage of having software installed locally on each machine is that it starts up faster and can run even when the network is down. |
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What's the basic setup of this account?
This account has a world-readable public_packages directory (similar to the existing pub_http_internet directory). Inside are subdirectories for each package hosted here. All the files (binaries, man pages, library files) related to a package sit in a tree inside that subdirectory. |
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What's the basic setup for users?
Each user has a $HOME/bin directory (added to their PATH) in which are placed symbolic links to the binaries in this account. The user can opt-in on individual packages, and can opt-out simply by deleting the symbolic links. |