Fedora Aims To Simplify Linux Filesystem

jfruhlinger writes "Even Linux's most passionate partisans will admit that its filesystem, which stashes vital files in a variety of arcane directories, can be baffling to users. The developers at the Fedora project want to cut the Gordian knot and consolidate all executables into /usr/bin and all libraries into /usr/lib or /usr/lib64. One downside: this system would conflict with the standards developed by the Linux Standard Base, or the (rarely used) Filesystem Hierarchy Standard."

Comments

/bin, /sbin had their functions

[l2718]

I think it's important to realize why the four directions /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin exist (and similarly why /lib is separate from /usr/lib). The reason is that once upon a time discs were small, so that /usr would be mounted separately from the root partition. So /bin and /lib are small directories containing as much of the operating system as you need to get going before you mount /usr and get everything else. In particular, this means the utilities needed to mount those other filesystems and to fix errors in them (e.g. fsck). The separation between /usr/bin and /usr/sbin means that ordinary users don't have system programs (those from /sbin) in their search path. Today most installations have the whole system (/ and /usr) on the same partition and it seems that many users use a GUI rather than a terminal. This means that the separation is not needed. Note that this change is not about multiple-architecture situations like /usr/lib and /usr/lib64. It's about the separation between /lib and /usr/lib (or /lib64 and /usr/lib64).