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GoboLinux Rethinks The Linux Filesystems
dolbywan_kenobi writes "GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy. In GoboLinux we have paths such as /Programs/XFree86/4.3/ and /System/Settings/BootScripts/Reboot." By design, GoboLinux is quite a bit different from most Linux distributions, and -- notably -- is a live ISO, always nice.
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:-)
/usr/bin, and so on), but remember that they all point to the same place. This is a huge advantage, as it means, for example, that you'll never have to search for a library throughout your filesystem again -- it will always be in /lib (and in /usr/lib, because they point to the same place! -- no worries about compatibility). /etc, /var/log and /usr/bin in the expected places. However, some directories, such as the users' directories, didn't need to be linked to their "legacy" locations. This way, for a given user called "joe", you'll have, instead of /home/joe, /Users/joe. Notice also that the superuser's directory is no different than the ones from the other users, so, gobo's directory is at /Users/gobo. Mount points are under /Mount, not /mnt. /System/Settings/BootScripts you will find a few files that command the entire boot procedure: Init and Done run at system boot and shutdown, respectively; Single and Multi are used after Init for initialization of single-user and multi-user modes. Halt and Reboot are used after Done for each specific kind of finalization. The Options file separate site-specific settings from the rest of the scripts, and Tasks serves as a function library.
/Programs/XFree86/4.3/ and /System/Settings/BootScripts/Reboot. Like it? Read more...
/System/Links/Shared, FiboSandbox, and last but never the least, GoboHide. As usual, the ISO is compiled for i686 and is a "live CD" so you can try out GoboLinux without actually installing it, so you have no reason not to check it out. :)
Differences between GoboLinux and a traditional Linux system
Once you installed GoboLinux, your experience will be greatly improved if you are aware of the following facts...
* In the GoboLinux hierarchy, files are grouped by their functional category (executables, libraries, and so on). There are links at the classic directories you are used to (/bin,
* A little known UNIX rule states that what defines the superuser is its user id (which is zero), not its name. Through the years, there has been a convention to call the superuser "root". In GoboLinux, we chose to choose the superuser's name. It's called "gobo". It's fun, less ambiguous and even a bit more secure (since most crackers will try to login in your machine as root, you can setup a dummy, easy-to-break "root" account that will serve as a cracker-trap). In any case, if you wish to change the superuser's name back to "root", it is easy to do so.
* There are symbolic links relating most of the usual UNIX directories to the GoboLinux tree. Therefore, you will find directories such as
* Another major difference between GoboLinux and most Linux distributions is that it does not use a BSD nor a System V initialization procedure. Instead, it has its own. At
Second Link:
Overview
GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy. In GoboLinux we have paths such as
News
It's official: GoboLinux 006 is out!
May, 9th, 2003 at 1:05
Five months after the first alpha version, GoboLinux version 006 is now the official stable release. There are too many improvements to list here, the greatest ones being
Existing users don't need to reinstall from scratch (actually the idea is to never have to reinstall from scratch!). An upgrade mini-HOWTO will soon be posted on our mailing list.
To-do list: ideas for the future
May, 2nd, 2003 at 17:04
GoboLinux is all about cool ideas. A lot of them float around in the mailing list, but end up buried in the archives. Now gobolinux.org has a place to store them, with an optimistic name of To-do List. It is part of the documentation section.
New GoboLinux webpage u
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Kuro5hin also has a good article on GoboLinux.
Are there any Microsoft tools for de/compressing normal archives (like ZIP, RAR, TAR.GZ, etc.)? Maybe in XP? I just use W2K + WinRAR.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong about treating compressed files as directories (especially if they have more than one file inside them). Technically, there isn't a big diference between, say, a ZIP file and a directory with file compression enabled.
Windows' default directory structure is reasonable, but I find some of the names too long (you can change them, BTW; programs will still install in the right places). I don't like drive letters at all, I would prefer drive / device names. It's possible to implement it with shares (ex., "boot:\\" instead of "c:\"), but some programs have problems with it.
On NTFS drives you can also mount volumes as directories (ex., mount your CD drive as c:\cdrom instead of e:, or whatever). NTFS is actually quite civilised.
RMN
~~~
/sbin utilities needed to get the the system to a booted state
/bin bare essential utilities needed to manipulate the system once booted or before multi-user mode
/usr/sbin system control programs needed to manage or alter a system once in multi-user mode
/usr/bin/ programs for interacting with a multi-user system
/usr/local/sbin/ system control programs that don't come from the os/hardware vendor
/usr/local/bin/ other programs that don't come from the os/hardware vendor
.org, .net and .com have lost their meanings.
Of course many modern lunix distributions break this by placing files wherever people think is cute, much like how the
--- I do not moderate.
/usr/share/plugins /usr/share/netscape/plugins /usr/share/mozilla/plugins
/usr/share tree, hence the name "share"; this matters more on traditional Unix hardware than it does now).
/usr/local and /usr separate - that way you, the local sysadmin (installing self-compiled stuff to /usr/local) and your package management system (installing to /usr) will never get in each others' way. /opt vs. /usr/local is a bit more subtle - you're meant to use /opt for identifiable "modules" which could be removed without side effects (I use it for games), and /usr/local for things which fit into the traditional Unix hierarchy (if you installed Mozilla in /opt the executable should be something like /opt/mozilla/mozilla or /opt/mozilla/bin/mozilla, if you installed in /usr/local it should just be /usr/local/bin/mozilla). Some distros don't have even have a /opt directory in the default install (Debian doesn't).
/usr/local vs. /opt), but it's pretty much standardized by now.
.tmp when I do backups)
/usr hierarchy is that you can put all the critical system files (/bin, /lib, ...) on a separate, smaller partition, which can sometimes even be read-only, guaranteeing that you have a bootable system.
Well, share is for platform-independent data, so that's out. (A Mac and a PC with the same Linux distro and packages should be able to use the same NFS-mounted
The rest are all possibilities, depending on whether you or your distribution vendor installed Mozilla, and whether you or they consider Mozilla to be a monolithic "black box" (like Windows apps) or an integrated part of the system (so it's easy for Galeon or other Gecko-based browsers to embed it).
It's valuable to have
I realise it's not ideal, particularly with some of the more subtle points (share vs. lib,
(I wish all my dotfiles followed a similar hierarchy, actually - I've started using symlinks to get the caches in ~/.tmp and the important config files in ~/.etc, so I can leave out
Some of the merging Gobolinux does seems like overkill; for instance, the benefit of having the