Re: keyboard key assignment in Linux

[Wendell Cochran atrypa@xxxxxxxx]

From: Paul Breeze 
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 15:19:23 GMT

> . . . some files under /etc and others in various subdirectories under
> /usr.  Why not all in one place? The /root -- /usr distinction, no
> doubt a great strength in a multi-user system, just adds further
> confusion if you are trying to set up a single user system. It might
> help if the names of the main folders provided clues to their
> functions but /etc, /var, /opt/?  As far as I can see these might
> just a well all be the same folder. I suspect much of this is
> historical . . . .

A hundred thousand files in one directory might lead to problems . .
. . Oh, that's a lot of files? Sure. But it's not out of line for
a modern operating system. Microsoft hides the complexity from us;
Linux leaves it out in the open. Both organize it with a
hierarchical scheme.

Most files in /etc etc are needed only during installation,
configuration, & the like. For run-of-the-keyboard work a user spends
almost all of any day in /home, /usr, and /var -- & probably neither
notices nor cares which is which.

For a lucid explanation of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, see

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2

Directory names like /var do make sense though maybe not at first
glance.

> Today I have Linux running smoothly on my computer but I cannot
> actually use it for anything (except browsing the web with Mozilla
> and sending emails if want to start using Mozilla). . . . When I
> want to do some work I have to go back to Gatesware. That seems to
> me to summarise the status of Linux today as far a desktop use is
> concerned. . . .

My turn to be mystified. Surely we don't have totally different
concepts of `desktop use'?

But this topic has drifted far. You may want to continue the
discussion off list.

Wendell Cochran
West Seattle