4 ms·

First you got /bin on boot, enough to mount an external drive to mount /usr and you're set. That's what I heard was the case back then. These days it's non sens

by h1d 9y ago

First you got /bin on boot, enough to mount an external drive to mount /usr and you're set. That's what I heard was the case back then. These days it's non sensical and I heard about an effort to symlink either of it to the other and consolidate the binaries. /opt is alright. It's where you dump your tar ball and compile your custom stuff and place it under not to mix stuff up with package managed software. Not sure how people differentiate against /usr/local though.

toyg 9y ago
/usr/local vs /opt, afaik, is mostly a case of 3rd-party commercial software ending up under /opt, whereas your more personal scripts and hacks are in /usr/local. I'm not particularly bothered about /bin vs /usr/bin, these days everything is in /usr/bin -- unless you are in an embedded scenario, and at that point everything is custom anyway. The one location that doesn't make sense is /usr/sbin, which is hopefully being phased out. Tbh the only thing I really miss is having ~/bin in PATH by default (and ~/lib, ~/share etc similarly picked up where necessary), since installing software in personal userspace is still pretty common in real multiuser environments; standardizing that would help, imho.
- gh02t 9y ago
  > Tbh the only thing I really miss is having ~/bin in PATH by default (and ~/lib, ~/share etc similarly picked up where necessary), since installing software in personal userspace is still pretty common in real multiuser environments; standardizing that would help, imho. Not sure that will become standardized, it's a big security risk. Usually you want ~/bin to be at the front of your PATH so it takes priority, but the downside is... well that it takes priority. It's easy for someone to subvert the stuff in PATH because they only need your permissions.
- arghwhat 9y ago
  Homebrew use /usr/local/bin, macports use /opt, so if you want to be "safe", you'd need to make yet another location... Arch undid this, but did it the silly way by letting /bin be a symlink to /usr/bin. I would have preferred it the other way around.
yellowapple 9y ago
"These days it's non sensical and I heard about an effort to symlink either of it to the other and consolidate the binaries." Yeah, Fedora wants to move everything to /usr, last I heard. I personally think it's a stupid idea (/usr is just a vestige of Unix's early development and was never meant to be a permanent part of the Unix filesystem layout) and would prefer everything to be under /, but whatever. "Not sure how people differentiate against /usr/local though." /usr/local is typically reserved for stuff built from source. OpenBSD also uses it for things installed via the package manager. /opt is a lot more freeform. Yeah, you can create an /opt/bin or /opt/lib or what have you, but the way I've seen it used (and the way I personally use it) is something closer to Program Files (so I'll have /opt/firefox or /opt/julia or whatever). A lot of commercial software packages will install to /opt in a similar manner.
lobster_johnson 9y ago
Fun fact: /usr exists because Thompson and Ritchie ran out of disk space on the root disk of their PDP-11 [1] in the early 1970s. /usr was originally where the user's files (everything but the OS) lived, but when they ran out of space they decided to just move OS stuff into it. The whole "/bin is available on boot until /usr is mounted" story, which a classic form of post-rationalization, though it was presumably a useful distinction for a while. [1] http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074...

by h1d 9y ago

toyg 9y ago

/usr/local vs /opt, afaik, is mostly a case of 3rd-party commercial software ending up under /opt, whereas your more personal scripts and hacks are in /usr/local. I'm not particularly bothered about /bin vs /usr/bin, these days everything is in /usr/bin -- unless you are in an embedded scenario, and at that point everything is custom anyway. The one location that doesn't make sense is /usr/sbin, which is hopefully being phased out. Tbh the only thing I really miss is having ~/bin in PATH by default (and ~/lib, ~/share etc similarly picked up where necessary), since installing software in personal userspace is still pretty common in real multiuser environments; standardizing that would help, imho.

gh02t 9y ago
> Tbh the only thing I really miss is having ~/bin in PATH by default (and ~/lib, ~/share etc similarly picked up where necessary), since installing software in personal userspace is still pretty common in real multiuser environments; standardizing that would help, imho. Not sure that will become standardized, it's a big security risk. Usually you want ~/bin to be at the front of your PATH so it takes priority, but the downside is... well that it takes priority. It's easy for someone to subvert the stuff in PATH because they only need your permissions.
arghwhat 9y ago
Homebrew use /usr/local/bin, macports use /opt, so if you want to be "safe", you'd need to make yet another location... Arch undid this, but did it the silly way by letting /bin be a symlink to /usr/bin. I would have preferred it the other way around.

yellowapple 9y ago

"These days it's non sensical and I heard about an effort to symlink either of it to the other and consolidate the binaries." Yeah, Fedora wants to move everything to /usr, last I heard. I personally think it's a stupid idea (/usr is just a vestige of Unix's early development and was never meant to be a permanent part of the Unix filesystem layout) and would prefer everything to be under /, but whatever. "Not sure how people differentiate against /usr/local though." /usr/local is typically reserved for stuff built from source. OpenBSD also uses it for things installed via the package manager. /opt is a lot more freeform. Yeah, you can create an /opt/bin or /opt/lib or what have you, but the way I've seen it used (and the way I personally use it) is something closer to Program Files (so I'll have /opt/firefox or /opt/julia or whatever). A lot of commercial software packages will install to /opt in a similar manner.

lobster_johnson 9y ago

Fun fact: /usr exists because Thompson and Ritchie ran out of disk space on the root disk of their PDP-11 [1] in the early 1970s. /usr was originally where the user's files (everything but the OS) lived, but when they ran out of space they decided to just move OS stuff into it. The whole "/bin is available on boot until /usr is mounted" story, which a classic form of post-rationalization, though it was presumably a useful distinction for a while. [1] http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074...