Mosfet.org: Rage against the File System Standard

Nov 20, 2001, 23:08 (76 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Mosfet)

"Here's a quick question: How are modern Linux systems worse than most old MS DOS systems? MS DOS applications knew how to use subdirectories to organize different applications. Linux distributions seemed to have forgotten this, making most people's computers utter and complete messes.

It seems most Linux distributions, starting with RedHat, have used the File System Standard to forget how to use subdirectories to organize files. Hundreds of applications now routinely get installed in one directory, /usr, making it nearly impossible to tell what is on your system or do basic system management using the standard Linux tools. You have to use the package manager. Typical Linux systems have over 2,000 programs sitting in one directory: /usr/bin. This is obscene.

How did this mess get started? Well, traditionally under both Unix and DOS you used subdirectories to group related files. So Microsoft Office got it's own folder, CDE got it's own folder, X Windows got it's own folder, Oracle got it's own folder... you see where I'm going ;-) On either platform if an application required more than a few files it was placed in it's own directory. This was considered good organization and made systems easier to manage."

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