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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The most important point is missing
by vtolkov on Sun 24th Aug 2008 05:30 UTC
vtolkov
Member since:
2006-07-26

I think the discussion is going into the wrong direction. The original GOBO concept has two important points, not one. Friendly names are important, but not much, actually. It is not hard to realize, that \lib means \libraries.

The most important point is that eventually we need to make some regularity and consistency in our file system. And we can use file system instead of all these manifests and configuration databases. Instead of copying executable into one of bins, we can keep it in and execute it from its own well-known place.

It is like books on a bookshelf. In a bedroom it is Ok to keep all books together, sorted by size and color of covers, but it does not work in a library. We need a catalog.

There are a lot of architectural possibilities coming from that. For example, side-by-side execution of different versions of software. Or, maybe, we can mount repository itself and run application from it directly using local file system as a file cache.

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