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Rage Against the File System Standard

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

pwagland submitted a rant by Mosfet on file system standards. I think he's sort of over simplified the whole issue, and definitely wrongly assigned blame, but it definitely warrants discussion. Why does my /usr/bin need 1500 files in it? Is it the fault of lazy distribution package management? Or is it irrelevant?

5 of 612 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Alternative? (do we actually need one) by A_Milne · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Do you really need to have all your apps in the path at all.

    I mean Their are hundreds of apps that are installed that I (you?) will never use. I dont really need them in my path as long as their is a logical place to find them.

    So if I have a good directory organisation, and then only add to my path the apps I really want to use a lot/quicklly (ll, vi, emacs, nedit, aCC, perl etc).

    The rest I can just refer to by full path. Its not much harder to type /usr/sbin/swlist.

    Stupidlly complicated sugestion update the shell to add any command you run to the path and keep it their until its been unused for a week. So first time I enter /usr/sbin/swlist. After that if I keep using it its just swlist.

    Andrew

    --
    Flame my comments, not me.
  2. -1, Troll by tjansen · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    If the article was a comment I would moderate it "-1, Troll". It's a stupid discussion that nobody needs, the question has been asked a thousand times..

    The author doesnt even have a point, saying "if I would not use a package manager it would be a mess". Well, he uses one, so it's not a problem. And if he didn't he could easily put each package in a single directory and create the world's longest environment variable.

  3. Taco, don't keep your pr0n in /usr/bin... by SethJohnson · · Score: 0, Flamebait


    Why does my /usr/bin need 1500 files in it?

    Taco,

    I don't know what software you are using to download binaries off usenet, but it sounds like there's a configuration glitch. If it's storing the pictures of cocker spaniels in /usr/bin, that's probably because of where the program is installed. Try changing the default setting to something like /usr/home/cmdrTaco/urineFetishPics.
    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
  4. BITCH BITCH BITCH by kindbud · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Mosfet sez, at the end of his article:
    Second of all a few angry people questioned my qualifications to make the above commentary, and one person even called me a novice!

    Perhaps this is because he made a novice-level comment:
    I asked around and it seems they don't want to manage the user's PATH variable, which tells Linux where it's programs are.

    I don't think I need to point out the glaring newbie goof here. Well, maybe I do: the shell makes use of PATH, not Linux, not Solaris, not Windows. PATH has nothing at all to do with Linux.

    I am not a Linux fan-boy, so I have no idea who Mosfet is, aside from this article where he sounds like a novice ranting about nothing important. Yeah, RH is bloated. Who'd have guessed?

    --
    Edith Keeler Must Die
  5. Moderators, this is the opposite of INSIGHTFUL! by Medievalist · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Unfortunately I don't have any mod points today.

    To be INSIGHTFUL mean sharing a non-obvious INSIGHT.

    The prior post, ironically, dumbs down the whole point of the original rant to the point of ignoring any and all deeper issues such as the desirability of elegant structure, the foolishness of relying on a single tool when this is unnecessary, and many others no doubt raised below.

    C'mon, moderators, get a grip! Interesting, maybe, flamebait, maybe, but INSIGHTFUL? Geez.

    --Charlie