[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Should I install chkrootkit?



On 2014-06-08, Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf@alice-dsl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> To see them in a terminal, the command is
>> 
>> $ ls -a
>
> I prefer
>
> $ ls -A
>
> "-A, --almost-all           do not list implied . and .."
>

Why are they (the files) hidden in the first place?  

Hey, a brief NSA-compatible Google search (of which the search terms
were: "Why are hidden files hidden") reveals the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_file_and_hidden_directory

 According to Rob Pike, the notion that filenames preceded by a . should be
 hidden in Unix was probably an unintended consequence of trying to make ls not
 show . and ... To avoid showing . and .., a simple test to exclude any file
 whose name started with a . character, rather than the exact names . and ..,
 was added to ls, and that happened to make all files starting with . hidden.[5]
 The convention of putting lots of hidden dotfiles directly in the home
 directory was considered bad design by Rob Pike and other Plan 9 developers,
 and they consequently put user config files in $HOME/cfg and $HOME/lib in Plan
 9.[5] The Unix/Linux freedesktop.org XDG Base Directory Specification also aims
 to migrate user config files from dotfiles in $HOME to non-hidden files in
 $HOME/.config.

So we will eventually have "non-hidden" files (but in a hidden directory!).


Reply to: