Re: Why complicated directory structure in Linux

AZ Nomad <aznomad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:44:22 -0500, Dave Uhring <daveuhring@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:09:51 +1000, Ron House wrote:

Dave Uhring wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:18:25 -0700, mydejamai wrote:


Why is Linux directory structure laid out so, what is the rationale


Why don't you read the man page for hier before asking such a dumb
question?

Why don't you take your civility pill each morning before you turn your
computer on? Maybe the question was a bit naive, but I've used linux
over a decade without knowing that there was a man page called hier, and
if I had known, I would not have guessed what was in it.

No need to guess; all you needed to do was type `man hier`. An
identically named man page exists in the BSDs while in Solaris the page
is named filesystem(5).

which of course leads to the next question, how the hell is anybody supposed
to know that?

This point is exactly why the question is relevant. Or as someone
else put it, they worked a decade on linux without know about "man
hier". Similarly, I've worked since the mid-70's on Unix systems,
building a Jovial compiler for Unix running on an interdata 8/32 was
one of my first jobs. I've used Linux since the early 90's, prior to
that I used SunOS/Solaris for most of my Unix work. I worked at DEC
in the Ultrix group, etc. and until this thread I didn't know there
was a "hier" man page, nor that it described why the file system was
laid out as it was.

Now, that's not a slam at Unix. I've worked on DOS/Windows systems
since the early 80's. I still don't know if there is a similar page
that describes the layout of the Windows "hierarchy" (for example, why
the registry entries have the structure that they do).

The fact is that the single hardest thing about finding how to do
something on a computer system is learning what the peole who wrote
the system call the thing you wish to do. All those thousands of
pages describing the menu hierarchies of windows programs, and the
thousands of man pages describing options to various commands, don't
do one a single bit of good unless one knows what the name of what
they want to do is called.

Imagine you want to move some text from one document to another. If
you want to do so in Emacs, you learn the the command pair is kill and
yank. If you want to do so in Windows, you learn it is cut and paste.
However, if you know kill and yank, how are you supposed to find cut
and paste (or vice-versa)? The answer is that you can't do that
easily--there is no documentation that doesn't inroduce its own
jargon. I've spent hours (no, literally years) trying to find how to
do certain things on various different systems that I've used, and
many of the searches weren't successful because I didn't know the
relevant jargon.

If prior to this thread you asked me what was on the "hier" man page,
I would have guessed that it was the description of the "hier"
command, some command which built or looked at hierarchies. I
wouldn't not have guessed that it described an already existing
hiearchy, although the file system hierarchy is the logical hierarchy
for it to describe once you know if describes some existing
hieararchy. I would have come closer when asked about the
"filesystem" man page, but I still would have guessed that it
described filesystems in general (e.g. ext2, afs, reiserfs, et al).

Could one even post the question to Google or ask.com as "Why is the
Unix file system laid out like it is with /bin and /sbin and
/usr/local/bin?" and get a reference that says "type 'man hier'"? I
don't think so. Well, now that this thread exists, maybe....

Therefore, if you find newbie questions about some topic that is at
least marginally relevant to the newsgroup in question irritating,
maybe you should consider not reading/replying on newsgroups. There
are lots of other ways to spend your time. If you want to see if I
try to live that example, read what I've posted on comp.compilers over
the years. I have my one bugaboo, people who want to do something by
hand, that they should use a tool to do, but I try not to answer
questions with "you are an idiot for asking".

Now, I think I'll go find an open Linux window and see what man hier says....
-Chris

*****************************************************************************
Chris Clark Internet : compres@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Compiler Resources, Inc. Web Site : http://world.std.com/~compres
23 Bailey Rd voice : (508) 435-5016
Berlin, MA 01503 USA fax : (978) 838-0263 (24 hours)
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: storing hierarchical values in db; methods
    ... In the years since I first did this, CPU and disk speeds have more than made up for the cost of constructing the hierarchy on the fly. ... I know that I said this didn't involve cursors, but this example minimally involves them, and it should be relatively easy to implement it without cursor. ... Before I get in to the nitty gritty I should at least give all of the credit for this algorithm ... hier node parent left_nbr right_nbr ...
    (perl.dbi.users)
  • Re: storing hierarchical values in db; methods
    ... made up for the cost of constructing the hierarchy on the fly. ... implement it without cursor. ... I should at least give all of the credit for this algorithm ... FROM hier h1, ...
    (perl.dbi.users)