5 ms·
Is it really the same? Or more like `rm -rf /usr` ? Was this folder always required to maintain the integrity of the system, or is this a more recent thing?
by gradstudent 4y ago
Is it really the same? Or more like `rm -rf /usr` ? Was this folder always required to maintain the integrity of the system, or is this a more recent thing?
- chungy 4y agoOn most Linux distributions, it's basically the same. Your package manager tends to make no distinction between OS files and installed program files. FreeBSD does another approach, where user-installed packages go to /usr/local and don't get intermixed with the base operating system.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's actually quite similar; it used to be that all the "system" binaries were in /bin and /sbin and the "other stuff" was in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin but that has not been true for quite a while on many distributions.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago"back in the time", /usr could be on a network drive, and /bin had to contain just enough stuff to boot the system, set up networking and mount the /usr
- codetrotter 4y agoInterestingly I actually did manage to make my /usr partition unmountable a few years ago on a system where I had changed the shell for the root user from /bin/sh to /usr/local/bin/bash and ever since then I have kept the default shell for the root user on my systems unmodified :)
- euroderf 4y agoBack in PDP-11 days (Unix v.6) my boss managed to do a "rm -fr *" not in his personal bin (as he believed ATM) but in the system bin. Oooooops. (but Armando S was ready with functioning backups.)