Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#21

Post by etskinner » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

postmodest wrote: post #20

Rygian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The home folder - /boot/home/" What relationship is there between home folders and the boot process?

These are folders on the boot drive, which is always mounted on /boot?

This seems like a bad choice. The home directory need not be on the boot drive. In fact, a lot of people put it on a separate drive, or at least a separate partition.

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#22

Post by mananaysiempre » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #16

ahoka wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a proper redesign from scratch, it could have the same success and market share Haiku has.

Right, without back-compat, any system trying to gain marketshare is domed. ...but Linux has chroot, symlinks, hardlinks, and everything in-between - it's entirely possible to design a Linux environment where the clutter and warts of back-compat are only visible to the users and programs that need to see them.

I’d point in the direction of Nixpkgs’s buildFHSEnv, but unfortunately Nixpkgs has its own layers and layers of cruft (being more than fifteen years old by now).

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#23

Post by mananaysiempre » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:09 PM UTC

nishs wrote: post #8

complementary openbsd resource: https://man.openbsd.org/hier some differences: * openbsd does not use a /boot/ partition. instead it uses the bsd.* files in root. * no /proc/ in its entirety in openbsd. use sysctl(3) instead. * current openbsd does not have a separate /var/tmp/; it is a symbolic link to /tmp/.

> openbsd does not use a /boot/ partition. instead it uses the bsd.* files in root.

So there’s no equivalent to EFISTUB (the kernel as a UEFI executable, most easily accomplished by mounting the ESP at /boot)?

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#24

Post by mananaysiempre » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

yrro wrote: post #12

rollcat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story went something like, the guys building UNIX got a second hard drive, so they moved the home directories (/usr) to it. As the system grew, they started dropping more binaries into /usr/bin (while trying to keep /bin for things needed to boot/rescue the system, in case the disk with /usr failed). The rest is history.

And to this day there is a mysterious 'bin' user on Linux systems that no one seems to use or know the purpose of. I wonder if another UNIX at some point added such a user in order to reserve '/usr/bin'...

At least one old UNIX book of French origin described the “bin” user as the owner of the common binary files on the system.

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#25

Post by pkkm » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

See also the GoboLinux filesystem hierarchy [0], which may be what would happen if we redesigned the traditional Unix hierarchy.

[0] https://wiki.gobolinux.org/Overview/GoboLinux-Filesystem-Hie...

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#26

Post by drexlspivey » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:12 PM UTC

/bin /usr/bin /usr/local/bin /sbin /usr/sbin /usr/local/sbin I never know where to put my own binaries so I just add my own at ~/bin. Some programs also add their own like ~/.cargo/bin what a mess

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#27

Post by egberts1 » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:12 PM UTC

yrro wrote: post #12

rollcat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story went something like, the guys building UNIX got a second hard drive, so they moved the home directories (/usr) to it. As the system grew, they started dropping more binaries into /usr/bin (while trying to keep /bin for things needed to boot/rescue the system, in case the disk with /usr failed). The rest is history.

And to this day there is a mysterious 'bin' user on Linux systems that no one seems to use or know the purpose of. I wonder if another UNIX at some point added such a user in order to reserve '/usr/bin'...

used to be that a drum drive covered /bin and a platter drive provided /usr/bin.

Makes upgrades easier when leaving SysV init alone (in /bin).

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#28

Post by readingnews » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

I actually like how the document dates itself, for example in the /opt description:

"For example, StarOffice, Kylix, Netscape Communicator and WordPerfect packages are normally found here"

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#29

Post by dun44 » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #19

ahoka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The /proc equivalent in OpenBSD is ptrace(2).

Could you elaborate? To me there seems extremely little overlap there (I'm familiar with both the procfs and linux's ptrace APIs, but not OpenBSD's ptrace).

Ptrace could an equivalent of what /proc was originally supposed to be, before it got repurposed for a bunch of sysctl-like purposes.

Re: Linux Filesystem Hierarchy (2004)

#30

Post by terinjokes » Thu, Nov 30, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

daaahhdekfbb wrote: post #17

Rygian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The home folder - /boot/home/" What relationship is there between home folders and the boot process?

It says it's the boot volume, not necessarily the equivalent I guess of /boot on Linux where it's exclusively for boot related things.

You may want to email HN (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) as it seems you're shadow banned.