[systemd-devel] Antw: Re: Antw: [EXT] Dropping split-usr/unmerged-usr support

[Neal Gompa]

On Thu, Apr 7, 2022 at 3:45 AM Ulrich Windl
<Ulrich.Windl at rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:
>
> >>> Wols Lists <antlists at youngman.org.uk> schrieb am 06.04.2022 um 21:41 in
> Nachricht <ae406587-8e46-0405-d14e-cb7f7b7dfe07 at youngman.org.uk>:
> > On 06/04/2022 10:34, Luca Boccassi wrote:
> >>> Symlinking /sbin or /usr/sbin binaries to /usr is also a bad concept
> >>> IMHO.
> >>>
> >>> It seems systemd is the new Microsoft ("We know what is good for you;
> >>> just accept it!");-)
> >
> > Well, I saw a link to WHY we have /bin, /usr/bin, /sbin etc. Interesting
> > read ...
> >
> > / was disk0. /usr was apparently originally short for /user, on disk1.
> > Then the system disk ran out of space, so they created /usr/bin to have
> > more space. So when they got a 3rd disk, they called it /home and moved
> > all the user directories across ...
>
> However space is not the only reason: Back in the times of non-journaling filesystems (and slow disks where a fsck could take 40 minutes or more) it was highly desirable to have a small root filesystem that could be checked quickly, to root had the chance to become active.
> Even today when something bad happens, one would probably prefer to have multiple smaller filesystems to repair rather than one "huge pot". MHO.
> Agreed Windows users who only know C: never wasted much thoughts on structure; see the mess in C:\Windows. But I thought UNIX was highly structured...
>

On the contrary, Windows has been much more organized than UNIX has
been. In the C:\ hierarchy, the "Windows" directory contains all the
resources to run Windows itself. System-wide applications are all in
"Program Files", and user data is in "Users". Those three directories
form the core of the Windows experience. There are obviously more
directories, but those three are essential for Windows itself. And if
you don't need any applications (just the base Windows OS), then you
can get away with just C:\Windows.

UNIX, meanwhile, didn't have an opportunity to be thoughtful
about how the hierarchy worked. Things got stuffed in where they could
based on the size of diskettes and what could be held in memory. The
fact that /usr doesn't actually represent where user data is proves
it. "Unix System Resources" is a backronym to attempt to deal with the
mistake of not renaming the directory when it evolved away from
holding user data. The Unix hierarchy is *full* of mistakes and
post-rationalizations ideally would be fixed someday but probably
won't be.



--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!