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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!col.hp.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!nate From: nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: File hierarchy (was Re: Linux or FreeBSD) Date: 18 Sep 1995 16:09:21 GMT Organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations Lines: 48 Message-ID: <43k5jh$d2f@helena.MT.net> References: <409iah$inf@galaxy.ucr.edu> <x77n3v6j1t.fsf@blindman.lm.com> <43diee$djf@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> <43h7mv$c0@lugnut.stu.rpi.edu> Reply-To: "Nate Williams" <nate@sneezy.sri.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.sri.mt.net In article <43h7mv$c0@lugnut.stu.rpi.edu>, Damien Neil <damien@lugnut.stu.rpi.edu> wrote: >In article <43diee$djf@post.gsfc.nasa.gov>, >Jason Garman <garman@beowulf.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote: > >>>thoroughly weird file hierarchy >>FSSTND is standardising the fs hiearchy... most distributions follow this; >>besides the file locations aren't _that_ different than BSD. > >This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask. Is there any >document giving a rationale for FreeBSD's file layout? % man hier. > I've become >completely confused as to what criteria have been used to distribute >files between (/usr)/bin and (/usr)/sbin. Under some systems, /sbin >has been a location for statically linked binaries. /sbin may contain statically linked binaries, but the 's' in sbin stands for system, not static. >This is not the >case with FreeBSD: all binaries on the root partition are statically >linked by necessity, and none of the ones in /usr/sbin are. See above. >Under the >Linux FSSTND, /sbin and /usr/sbin are to contain binaries that only the >superuser would ever want to execute. That doesn't seem to describe >the situation with FreeBSD either, though; ping in is /sbin, nslookup >is in /usr/sbin, and both are often used by users. Agreed, but they aren't *needed* by normal users. Generally speaking power users are those which use it. This is a sticky issue as to what a normal user should run vs. a regular user, but the BSD folks agreed that the network debugging code is 'system' code and not normal users code, although they can obviously run it. Nate -- nate@sneezy.sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations nate@trout.sri.MT.net | Loving life in God's country, the great state of work #: (406) 449-7662 | Montana. Wanna go fly fishing? I don't charge or home #: (406) 443-7063 | feed you, but I do know the area pretty well.