On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Paul Lussier wrote:
[snip]
> I can see their argument for where they put stuff:
>
> apache/httpd is a user, user stuff goes in /home/<username>
> apache logs a whole bunch of stuff, logs go in /var/log/<pkgname>
> apache is a program, programs binaries go in /usr/bin
> apache has config files, config files go in /etc/<pkgname>
>
> However, you now have 4 locations to look for package related stuff
> in. I find this separation to all those locations more inconvenient
> than their reasoning probably seemed to them at the time.
[snip]
I normally don't pipe in, but in this instance I had a sudden
thought. Where RedHat is coming from, MANY of their users aren't
sysadmins or linux pros who've seen the user base swell, and so they are
"used to" many conventions. Who are many of Red Hats new users? People
who've used only Windows and want to try "this Linux thing". To them, it
makes far more sense to have the binaries in /usr/bin, logs in
/var/log/<pkgname>, because Windows does the same thing with its system
DLLs, INF files, config files, etc. going into appropriate directory.
While there is always a /Program Files/ directory or some such, parts of
the program can be found all over. While this doesn't seem to make sense
to Linux users who are used to everything being in one directory, it
makes more sense to new Linux users, and that's probably their reasoning.
Note, however, that I'm not saying it's a GOOD thing to do, I'm
merely putting forth a theory for why they may have done this.
[snip]
> Yeah, but you know, if they had just used some common sense to begin
> with and did a survey of how people use the software, we wouldn't need
> things like the FHS :)
Well, I'd counter that by quoting the old adage about if common
sense were so 'common', everybody'd have it. ;-)
--
Dana S. Tellier Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Student Engineer University of New Hampshire
InterOperability Lab 220 Morse Hall, NH 03824
MPLS Consortium 603-862-4212 FAX: 603-862-1761
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