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Define - /etc?

ogar572 asks: "There has been an ongoing and heated debate around the office concerning the definition of what /etc means on *nix operating systems. One side says "et cetera" per Wikipedia. Another side says it means 'extended tool chest' per this gnome mailing list entry or per this Norwegian article. Yet another side says neither, but he doesn't remember exactly what he heard in the past. All he remembers is that he was flamed when he called it 'et cetera', but that 'extended tool chest' didn't sound right either. So, what does it really mean?"

3 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Not an acronym by Spazmania · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why would /etc be an acronym when every other directory off root is an abreviation? /bin - binaries /boot - bootstrap files /dev - devices /home - user home directories /lib - libraries /mnt - temporary mounts /proc - processes /sbin - static binaries /tmp - temporary files /usr - user programs (not boot critical) /var - variable data

    --
    Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
  2. Re:Pronunciation? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The correct pronunciation is "et setera", since it is taken directly from Latin.


    In which, ironically, it is pronounced "et ketera" (stress on the "ke" and remember to roll the r). English has done really weird things to the pronounciation of Latin.

    Chris Mattern

  3. Re:Pronunciation? by ari_j · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, but they did write millions of lines of poetry, much of it with strict forms. If you read a million lines of C with lots of good comments, you'd figure out the syntax before you finished.