On August 15, 2010 04:30:04 pm Perry E. Metzger wrote: > On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:15:35 -0600 Bruce Sass <bms...@shaw.ca> wrote: > > /sbin and /usr/sbin, /lib and /usr/lib directories? > > > > AFAICT, the reason is so that a minimal but functional system is > > guaranteed to exist so long as a local HDD with a root filesystem > > is available (which doesn't necessarily include /usr); > > The true reason is that back in ancient days, hard drives were too > small to put everything in one place, so ancient Unix machines at > Bell Labs in the 1970s ended up with some programs on the root disk > and some on the same supplementary disk where the home directories > were typically put. This was not done with any great forethought, it > was simply a temporary expediency. Because / was on the boot disk, it > was necessary to make sure that every program needed for initial boot > was there, and thus some programs were more important to put in /bin > and the like. ...
Thanks. I like the "onion" story, I don't think it is entirely fitting though--to gain the benefit of that dollar or so worth of HDD space I'd need to effectively re-tool to get it installed... if it was necessary to replace the vat (shutdown production, remove a wall or two, rewire the controls, etc.) to get rid of the onion I suspect they'd still be used in some older varnish plants. What I'd really like to see is support for a shared /usr hierarchy and a way to optionally push configs onto separate boxes. Such a setup would be useful in a classroom or office where it is desirable for everyone to have the same software installed and there are enough boxes that maintaining them as independent units can be expensive. - Bruce -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201008160654.05513.bms...@shaw.ca
