<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Kevin Kofler wrote: <blockquote id="mid_gua2fu_j2u_3_ger_gmane_org" cite="mid:gua2fu$j2u$3@ger.gmane.org" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Michael Nielsen wrote: </pre> <blockquote id="StationeryCiteGenerated_1" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">4. Everything is thrown in huge collective directories, such as /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc, and it is a huge mess </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> This is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, and it encodes decades of experience organizing file systems into a standard which minimizes differences across implementations. </pre> </blockquote> I know of the standard, however, I really doubt the current Fedora configuration really follows it, I still don't see why everything needs to be thrown in /usr/bin? Currently on some installations, if you try to open them, are exceedingly heavy, I've had smaller machines stall out, as I try to change the application that starts when for instance a movie is to be played in firefox, apparently due to the amount of files in /usr/bin. <blockquote id="mid_gua2fu_j2u_3_ger_gmane_org" cite="mid:gua2fu$j2u$3@ger.gmane.org" type="cite"> <blockquote id="StationeryCiteGenerated_2" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">just like windows with it's system32 directory, which is also a huge mess. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> Actually Window$ is the system which started this "one directory per app" stupidity. *nix has never worked that way. Kevin Kofler </pre> </blockquote> I beg to differ, having worked with several different UNIX flavours, I've yet to see a commercial UNIX that throws everything into one directory. Though I stopped working with the commercial ones in 1999, and went to Linux then. I noted the installation procedure of not throwing everything in one directory, before windows 3.1 was implemented, so I doubt it started with windows. There are inherent advantages in not throwing everything in one big blob. Windows have seperated parts of the applications into specific directories, is a good idea, however, in Windows everything that is shared, is thrown into system32, and therefore removing an installation of a problem is nearly impossible, because there is Junk spread throughout the system, relating to a particular application, one of the causes for problems with windows. Thus if you need to run a non-packaged software, due to patches that you need (security), you can only hope that the package manager successfully removes everything, and does not leave junk behind which may, or may not affect the running of the newer compilation. Throwing everything in one directory hierarchy causes one particular problem that I personally find rather annoying, the inability to use the package manager system to have multiple versions of for-instance firefox installed on a system, as I often test on multiple versions, however, if I do not use the package manager, it is trivial to have multiple versions of an application installed, however, now the updates for the application is disabled, and they need to be manually updated, which is annoying. The same situation can be seen when you run 64 bit systems, sometimes you need to run something in 32bit compatibility, however you cannot install the libraries you need because of conflicts in the packaging system, as - again - everything is thrown into one directory - in this case the /usr/share/doc directory, which means you need to find out how to force the installation of the libraries. /mike. </body> </html>