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Re: File location differences between Debian and other 'X'nix's?



On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 11:40:29PM +0100, John Gay wrote:

> Sorry for the format, but I'm E-Mailing from Lotus Notes on a Windows PC at work
> and can't change the format. Sorry.

Prior experience tells me that writing in short paragraphs helps make
mail from notes look more reasonable.  As ever, YMMV.

> Thanks for the info for the FHS, I'll have a search for it later. This explains
> why Netscape installed in /usr/local/. . . , but not why Debian puts sane's
> config files in /etc/sane.d when sane looks for it in /usr/etc/sane.d. I'm
> thinking, then that sane is to blame for being different? Like I said, I'll have
> a search for the FHS doc's and have a read. This is how we learn things.

It's a combination of both.  There is a choice to be made between
staying with the application defaults for filesystem layout and making
the distribution self-consistent.  The former is good for experts in a
given package while the latter makes it easier for people to use any 
given package from the distribution and makes the distribution seem more
like a cohesive and integrated whole rather than some software slammed
on a CD.

In this case, /usr/etc isn't very widely used by Linux programs, and there
are strong advantages in putting all configuration (or at least, all 
configuration of the programs supplied by the distribution) in /etc so
it's a fairly easy decision.

-- 
Mark Brown  mailto:broonie@tardis.ed.ac.uk   (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
            http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
EUFS        http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/

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