Subject: Comments on Draft 2

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 92 12:10:57 GMT

1)  I am a little unhappy about having init in /bin, since no
    user -- not even root -- needs to access it.  Should this
    be in lib?
 
2)  I do not think root's home directory should be in /, since
    this means that / tends to accumulate .exrc, .profile, .bashrc,
    .kermrc, etc.  Also there are utilities that write files in
    your home directory; these should not write to /.
 
3)  What goes in /lib?  The draft says 'libraries required for
    system initialisation'.  I presume this is either shared
    libraries (in which case libc.a belongs here, not in /usr/lib)
    or libraries needed to reconfigure the kernel (in which case,
    /lib does not seem as approproate as /usr/etc or /etc).
 
4)  The draft says that /usr/lib should contain crt0.s.  Presumably
    this is an error for crt0.o.
 
Generally I think the draft is good, providing clear reasons for
simple choices.
 
     A. V. Le Blanc
     University of Manchester
     [email-masked]

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From: Chuck Boyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 92 19:22:36 -0800

Well, it seems to me, that with 3 or 4 major 'basic' machines (SUN, PC
clone 386, 'old' unix users, 'new' unix users) that there should be
agreed upon by a vote which set of standards of a dir tree structure
that should be set. Pure democratic vote, where the majority percentage
wins, first. Second, then we will be 'set.' Then posters of ported or
new software will have to state whether their libs, etc. will look for
things in the compile/build/make process in 'standard' or 'non-standard'
format. Then it is easy to post formulas for making the thing executable.
There will then be people who refuse, for one reason or another, to change
their setup and can just link away, set up standard links, etc.
But, this should be set up via the Posix standard at first. The discussion
has to stop here and things will adjust and get moving.

---

From: [email-masked] (Frank Volf)
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 92 09:19:14 +0100

You [email-masked] (David W. Summers) wrote:

> I've been watching the debate about where to put Admin files and executables.
>
> What I would like is to have the executables either in /etc/bin or /usr/etc
> and the admin files themselves in /etc.
>
> Someone mentioned that they "didn't understand this fascination with keeping
> executables out of etc."
>
> Well, I would like to keep them out, because sometimes it is confusing
> (even to Sys. Admin. types like me! :-) whether or not a file (just by looking
> at the file name) is supposed to be an executable or a data file).  I know,
> you can "ls -l" and see, but I like the separation of data files and executables
> like we normally have in other directories.
 
I partially agree with you, becuase novice (=non sysadmin) may be confused if they
examine /etc. But /etc is not for novice users!!!! It's for sys admin people
who know what they are doing (I hope). Sys admin's know which command they need
in a particular case. We (= the sys admins) do not examine /etc to look for 
some interesting executable and then try it (like many novice users do with 
/usr/games). We know which command we need and where the executable resides!
So from an theoretical point of view I agree, but in practice it ain't no problem.

>
> I agree there should probably not be any executables in /lib or /usr/lib, but
> then again, we need somewhere to put that stuff.  I think that many (most?)
> times things like that should go in /etc/bin or /usr/etc.
>
> As to where root's home should go, how about "/root" ????
I agree root files should not go in /, just because it's a mess having around all
kind of dot (and possible other) files in /. I want to keep the / as clean as 
possible (only the basic directories /bin /dev /etc .......) and possible some
interesting file like /vmlinux.

   - David Summers

               Best regards, Frank

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