"Today, the GNOME Project celebrates the release of GNOME 2.12, the latest
version of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment." Important changes include, but are not limited to: Clearlooks set to default theme, improved file manager (Nautilus), new document viewer (Evince), and much more. The release notes are here, download information can be found here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Thanks for the extensive reply - it shows a bit more of your understanding and reasoning behind your previous post(s).
With regards your partitions, *nix and XP (I'll use XP as my example as its easier to type than Windows!) both handle partitions slightly differently, but also similarly in some cases. For e.g. did you know you could mount a new hard disk in XP as c:mydatagames? Then mount another one as c:mydatamusic... This kind of points to how mount points etc work under *nix.
How to set up your disk is a wide topic and I could never possibly describe the varieties, reasoning, arguments etc. I tend to have my / partition (i.e. the one that contains all the "system" files) as one partition. Therefore, if I want to nuke my installation I only have to kill that / partition. On that same disk, I create a /swap partition. I then have a seperate disk for my /home and /mnt/datadrive. When I fill my /mnt/datadrive.
In theory, anything stored in the / file structure is mountable on any partition or disk. You therefore have *more* control over a *nix file system than you do of an XP one. However, XP hides away a lot of the goodies of mounting to directories etc from novice users, and will instead do a "you have a new disc, would you like to format it" kind of routine, ending up with C: D: E: F: etc. Once you get your head round the possibilities of *nix file systems, you'll see that "the Windows way" as you put it is more susceptible to being b0rked than a comparative *nix setup.
See http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/pro... for details of Dynamic Volumes in XP.
See http://twiki.iwethey.org/Main/NixPartitioning for a sample Debian suggested partitioning scheme.
Member since:Thanks for the reply..
It was very informative and actually made me 'get' the whole *nix dir structure alot better now..
I actually never thought about it in the way that for example /home could be it's own partition, just like I use d: for all my stuff and keep c: for windows itself as much as possible..
so /home could then be pretty much like my d:, except for the fact that apps aren't installed there.. correct?
if I wanted to make one partition for the apps then, what would that be? /usr?
One thing I still wonder about tho, what happens when /home is filled? Can I 'extend' my /home dir onto another HDD, or do I create a new /home dir on the new HDD, or how is it handled?
(hope someone still reads this, since this item has been pushed down into the archive..)
Member since:
ookay, I'm gonna try to answer all three of your posts here.. Bare with me..
It's obvious I did a piss poor job of making my points in the first post (I'm the original poster about the dir structure problem and samba problem, just on another machine now).
I tried to explain some more in my second post, but to be honest, was way too pissed off at the insulting reply I got for no good reason, and apparantly still receive.
SO, if some users could try to STOP the god damn insults, I'll try to explain my points in a way that you HOPEFULLY can understand them..
I'll start with replying to JCooper's response, which is the only one not beeing insulting towards me:
1. I didn't say it was difficult to grasp. I grasp it, I just don't like it.
2. I know users hardly ever do that, but me personally (and several friends of mine) like to have complete 'control', if you like, of the file structure and where all files are located. This is due to the nature of Windows, having to pretty much format the system every year or so, in order to keep it somewhat effective.
Which brings me to #3.
3. I almost never install apps in Program Files, due to the same reason as point #2.
I install apps on another partition, so whenever I need to reformat, I ONLY format C: and can keep most of my apps and files intact, which makes everything ALOT easier and takes ALOT less time (still have to go through the complete mess called 'documents and settings' tho for all my settings etc..).
So, I pretty much keep C: as unused as possible and instead keep all my stuff on D: or something..
This is how I like it and if it was up to me, it's how I'd do it in *nix systems aswell, even tho they don't have the need for reformats like Windows does.
4. see point #3.
5. I absolutely don't mind the dirs beeing called /sys, /etc, /bin, and so on...
I just don't like how there are tons of system dirs directly in the root, instead of all collected in one dir, like this:
/System/etc
/System/bin
/System/sys
instead of:
/etc
/bin
/sys
like now... If you see what I mean..
That alone would clean up alot imo..
Then ofcourse there's the whole thing about partitions..
I actually am not entirely sure how this is handled in *nix systems.
In Windows partitions have their own logical unit, like C:, D: etc..
And I choose on which partition to put my files, but how is that handled in *nix's?
Say I have two harddrives, and I fill my home dir with more files than one HDD can handle, does the system automatically put files on the second drive, even tho they are in the same directory?
Or does it work like in Windows, like my homedir is located only on one of the HDD's and when it's filled, I'm forced to abandon my home dir and instead store my files in some other dir on the second HDD?
I don't know if I explained that good enough, but I hope so.
If it's automatic, then sure that's good and all, but I _still_ prefer the 'windows way' of doing it because what happens if half the system is located on one HDD and half on the other and one HDD breaks?
In Windows world, atleast I know exactly which files I loose if one HDD breaks, but if all that is handled automatically in *nix, then I guess it would be possible that I'd loose half of my files in one project and half in another project, even tho all projects were located in the home dir.. Right or Wrong?
I honestly don't know and am asking here, so no flames please.