[RFC] User Accesable Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Mon, 2004-04-05 at 07:17 -0700, Michael A. Peters wrote:
> I personally don't like the idea.
> If I want a bin directory in my home directory - export PATH=~/bin:$PATH
> 
> The problem I see is security. A virus can not alter binaries it does
> not have permission to alter, and that is why binaries, config files,
> default templates, etc. should be installed with root ownership by the
> root user.

I fully agree with you. I'm just trying to minimize some design
problems.

> Another issue is dependency resolution. Either everything in these

> Another issues is updates - they will not be able to be managed by the

Perfectly reasonable. It's just a matter of "creating a standard" way to
do this, but this clearly isn't for joe newbie anyway.

> I think a better solution is simply to make it easy for end users to use
> the facilities of yum or apt or whatever the distro has implemented.

Yes. +++++

> Yes - it means knowing the root password to install software. Cry me a
> river. It's the right way to do it, encouraging users to install
> software in their home directories is imho a recipe for disaster. That
> should only be done by developers who are testing their code, and know
> how to launch an app that isn't in their path.

I don't understand why, but people seem to think one should be able to
do advanced things and not know what one is doing. _This_ is a recipe
for disaster. If it's joe newbie don't make it easy for him to install
"untrusted" software, make it easy for him to install software from
"trusted" sources. For this you need a fairly large resource pool and an
easy way to install software.

Strangely enough, many think GNU/Linux has few software, and say it
looks like Windows when a full install occupies several gigabytes.

What they don't usually notice, which is strange for me, is that seldom
do they need to install foreign software. There's no need for an
"installer" like Windows has since our installers are way better (rpm,
deb + metapackagers like apt, yum, etc...).

It's a problem of education!

Rui

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

Please AVOID sending me WORD, EXCEL or POWERPOINT attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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