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Equally the history of why we have /bin /sbin and /usr/bin. Lack of disk space. When the OS got too big for a single disk and expanded to a second the split cam

• fl0wenol 8y ago
  Also, remember that the /usr used to mean "user", as in, if you were "bob" then your home directory was /usr/bob. That dance was done twice! Moving stuff to /usr/bin made sense after systems got too big for a single volume and you've got this directory on a nice, new spacious multi-megabyte disk (oooh!) In those ancient days of Unix the sysop acting as the "bin" user owned /bin and the files inside it and could overwrite them from tapes or compilation. (root would own the files in the sbin) So /usr/bin technically started out as his or her home directory when logging in as that account... at least back then. /usr/sbin only came about after /home became the colloquial location for home directories, such that you had parallel constructions for /bin and /sbin under /usr, and later, /usr/local just as you did at the root.
  • kps 8y ago
    > So /usr/bin technically started out as his or her home directory […] That sounds wrong. /usr/bin existed at least as early as V6, but the 'bin' user's home directory was /bin.