Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 23rd Aug 2008 15:37 UTC
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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Member since:2005-11-02
Really, why does it matter? Why does it matter if firefox is in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin? As long as both are in your $PATH you don't need to know anyway. The only times I can think of that I needed to know where an executable was, I was doing things no "average user" would do.
Most of what you say is great, but I take some issue with this. It doesn't matter to the user where their binaries are, for the most part, but it ought to matter to system designers, developers and packagers. Currently there's not enough agreement. My favorite example: games.
I think improving the logic and consistency of where things are placed and what those places are named would be good for Linux. It would improve matters for people who have to deal with it every day and it would ease more "average users" into "power users", make learning easier, which makes hacking easier, which will lead to more free software.
Member since:2005-07-06
Why would there even be a relationship between name spaces and physical layouts?
Of course you should be able to distribute your data across different machines and different connection types. Especially these days when the web is more and more getting integrated into the "computer".
But why should the name space be dependent on this? Today we have the beginnings of ways to separate the two with tools like unionfs and such.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.More News »
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Member since:
2008-08-24
I have no problem with any distribution monkeying around with any aspect of Linux they want to, FHS included. FOSS is about evolution, and we have to create "mutants" if we want to find the "fittest". If every distro did things the same, the software would never evolve.
But I think the criticism of FHS is overblown. What bothers me most is how narrowly some folks look at Linux. There's this mentality of "all this junk is from the server days, now we all run Linux on our laptops so we can throw it all out". I happen to like the fact that I can put /usr on an NFS mount. Maybe that's useless to the average myspace user, but I don't see why it makes a difference to them whether all the executables are in one directory or seventeen.
Really, why does it matter? Why does it matter if firefox is in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin? As long as both are in your $PATH you don't need to know anyway. The only times I can think of that I needed to know where an executable was, I was doing things no "average user" would do.
A few other notes:
- /srv is standard on Novell SLES, it's used for the webroot, ftp root, and similar. I wish more distros would use it (Hello Debian? Why is the webroot in /var???). Granted, in 99 out of 100 other cases, Debian sticks to the FHS better than SLES (ahem.. KDE binaries in /opt? What?)
- /etc is not English. It's Latin. Maybe we should create a FHS using all Latin terms. At least nobody would be getting favoritism.
- /usr/local is used by most Linux systems for packages that are compiled locally as opposed to being installed through the package manager. To me that is more useful than trying to create an artificial distinction between "OS" and "apps".
- I wonder how many of us linux admins are guilty of inventing our own TLD's and stinking up the situation even more. Yep, I look guilty...