The Challenge: the Manageable Computer
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 23rd Aug 2008 15:37 UTC
Editorial Earlier this week, we ran a story on GoboLinux, and the distribution's effort to replace the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard with a more pleasant, human-readable, and logical design. A lot of people liked the idea of modernising/replacing the FHS, but just as many people were against doing so. Valid arguments were presented both ways, but in this article, I would like to focus on a common sentiment that came forward in that discussion: normal users shouldn't see the FHS, and advanced users are smart enough to figure out how the FHS works.
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Doc Pain
Member since:
2006-10-08

That whole "/usr" = Unix System Resources is not really confirmed. Most people think that's a "backronym" which was invented long after the /usr structure was in effect.


I think you're right, I just wanted to illustrate what /usr is today.

And what the hell is "etcetera!?" I know what the term means, but if 50% of a usable Linux system lives there, that's poor categorization, no?


This is correct. Traditionally, /etc resided on the / partition and contained essential binaries to run and maintain a system at a low level, for example, when problems occur mounting further partitions. So you did have things like /etc/INIT, /etc/rc, /etc/mount or /etc/fsck, all of them in the same directory. At some point, there was a consensus to use /etc for the system startup scripts and their configuration, and later on, for configuration of installed application (Linux: sometimes /etc; BSD: /usr/local/etc).

Frankly, the current layout sucks. From one system to another, the same program could be installed in ten different locations (/bin, /sbin, /usr/local/bin, /opt ,to name a few common ones).


This is not due to the concept in general, but to the developers, maintainers or distributors not following recommendations and standards (it you may call them this way), or just by their different interpretation about how to use existing structures. Again, BSD is more clean here than Linux, but not generally, as I have to admit.

Whatever the changes, something should be done about this obscene mess. The only logical argument to keep it is that millions of programs follow its ridiculous rules.


While projects like GoboLinux have interesting approaches of abstraction, most of the good GUI solutions still have the mess you described under the hood. If you can't get the developers to develop a reasonable consensus, this mess will only get worse, I believe.

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