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It also begs the question, why it was named "etc" :)
by malkia 14y ago
It also begs the question, why it was named "etc" :)
- napum 14y agoI'm guessing it's because /etc contains configuration files and dot-files are just configuration files. Or do you mean, why was /etc named etc?
- deno 14y agoI think they meant the latter. Why is it /etc instead of, perhaps more obvious, /config or /settings?
- malkia 14y agoIf it was meant for configuration - probably it would've been - /cfg /ini /set /opt /flg /arg /prm (params) As someone said - naming things is the hardest!
- petercooper 14y agoFor the latter, a lazy copy/paste from Wikipedia: "There has been controversy over the meaning of the name itself. In early versions of the UNIX Implementation Document from Bell labs, /etc is referred to as the etcetera directory as this directory historically held everything that did not belong elsewhere (however, the FHS restricts /etc to static configuration files and may not contain binaries)."
- spitfire 14y agoYou can ask this question for most of unix. Why /etc? Why /bin and /usr/bin? (Answer: At one time hard disks were very small and crashed a lot), why do we presume screens are black and white, etc, etc. Try to change any of it though, and a lot of luddites will come out screaming bloody murder. It's just not UNIX if it makes sense.
- noibl 14y agoMaybe the alternative was "..." :)
- szopa 14y agoThe origins of /etc are lost in history. Wikipedia [1] says that at Bell Labs /etc was pronounced "et caetera," and contained files that didn't belong elsewhere. And it had the advantage over conf or misc that it was only 3 letters. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
- agumonkey 14y agomy de-obfuscation attempt: etc > e.t.c > edit to configure. the .rc suffix has a nice history btw