Some reflections on directories for temporary data in Grass

[Andreas Holz]

Dear GRASS-programmers,

	1)

	Runnig GRASS on Linux:

	I'm thinking about to move the .tmp directory from the 
	grass-database/user directories to /tmp.

	Why:

	- NFS on LINUX is moderate slow, so, if the GRASS-databases
	  are mounted via NFS, the access is slow. Even programs
	  like d.display are writing data to the .tmp directory, so 
	  these programs are slow, too. Moving the temporary data
	  to the /tmp directory of a local harddisk would improve the
	  performance.

	- think about a readonly-filesystem like a CD-ROM, the .tmp
	  directories would not be writable. They have to be hardlinked
	  on the CD-ROM to the workstation's harddrive.


	I think, this should be no problem, because there is no difference
	in the position of global temporary directories in the databases, or
	in a local /tmp directory.

	I found only one program in src/libes/gis which is generating the
	access path to the temporary directory. There should be no problem in
	the cleanup of the temporary directory, even it would be /tmp.

	
	What is the reason for a .tmp directory in the databases directory
	tree, is there something I've neglected?



	2)

	What do You think about moving the xgrass-menu file to the user's
	home directory?


	Andreas Holz