Directory structures in the future and other things I want.

[Timothy Selivanow]

On Fri, 2008-03-28 at 03:11 -0400, Casey Dahlin wrote:

> The approach you're using to the filesystem is wrong. We don't need to 
> make it more accessible. We need to do the opposite. The user that can't 
> handle unix file paths doesn't need to have the system changed to 
> accomodate him. He needs to be kept inside his home folder where he 
> can't break anything.
> 
> It seems strange that the majority of the folder structure is the OS's 
> business alone, but raw space is still very much in the user's domain.

It seems to me that the majority of the concerns stem around "users",
functionality, and friendliness.  It seems to me that making the command
line and the FS structure easier for people who don't know what they are
doing to be a step in the wrong direction.

As a not-average user (conventional /linux/ user, you might say), I
understand the division between things that are root only and things
that are consumable by all.  I'm OK with having to su or sudo to do
things, I'm OK with having to know the full path of certain binaries (I
use sudo with no password, but not add ${prefix}/sbin to my personal
path).

One of the biggest complaints I've heard from users that have migrated
to linux, is that they frequently have to type things on the command
line when trying to get certain things setup (perhaps a tool is only
available on command line for instance).  I personally am OK with doing
things on the command line, and have multiple terminals open on both the
local machine and several that I ssh into, but the things /I/ do with
computers aren't necessarily the kinds of things /users/ would do with
computers.

Perhaps a more GUI focus with the addition of some distro provided
default FS ACLs (combined with SELinux?) to address the whole "but a
user can still run the binaries in ${prefix}/sbin and an intelligent GUI
based automatic user privilege escalation scheme (for single user based
systems, for example) would be more inline with people have been
wanting/complaining about.

Now, I do understand that these are complex issues with complex
solutions, and I could be way off base, but I'm willing to contribute as
much as I can.  Sometimes, however, said contribution isn't necessarily
obvious to me ;).


--Tim
 ___________________________________________________________ 
< You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. >
 ----------------------------------------------------------- 
  \
   \   \
        \ /\
        ( )
      .( o ).