Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!206.139.252.5!newsreader.com!not-for-mail From: curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: 17 May 1997 03:46:16 GMT Organization: KCW Consulting Lines: 33 Message-ID: <gCIU$zd@NewsReader.Com> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <5l37jg$87j$1@wuff.mayn.de> <5l7jvt$q8b$10@halon.vggas.com> <33776BE4.6883@ford.com> <337C64F0.41C6@cs.ucc.ie> NNTP-Posting-Host: h4.kcwc.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45099 comp.os.linux.misc:175753 comp.os.linux.x:61808 alt.os.linux:21268 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3294 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41090 gnu.misc.discuss:31338 comp.unix.solaris:106760 lumpy <lumpy@cs.ucc.ie> wrote: > Here's a few that I always wonder about: > /etc = ETCetera ?? > /usr = USeR ?? > /var = VARious ?? I pronounce /usr as slash user, so seeing someone ask if it means "user" just makes me chuckle. Yes, it was where the user home dirs were. /usr/bin is where the "users" programs were placed -- programs like dd which came from a strange IBM JCL user who wanted to read/write IBM tapes on the Unix box and clearly had no clue when it came to understanding what a Unix command should look like. It's hard to believe we still have that strange command around today! /etc is of course etcetera. I've never known for sure what /var was - it came many many years later. I've always thought it meant variable i.e. the stuff that would change from one system to the next on a network of systems with shared filesystems. As a quiz, how many people remember these directories, what they were used for, and what their names mean. /sys/dmr /sys/ken Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/