IT World: Fedora to Simplify Filesystem Hierarchy

[Karin Bakis]

http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/218847/fedora-simplify-filesystem-hierarchy

Fedora to simplify filesystem hierarchy
Binaries consolidated, but what about shell scripts and the LSB?

By Brian Proffitt  4 comments

November 02, 2011, 11:41 AM — Since 1979 (or thereabouts), Linux and UNIX-like operating systems have followed a particular, if arcane, way of organizing files. Now the Fedora Project is proposing a plan that will drastically change the way this filesystem hierarchy stores binary applications... if they can work out the potential kinks.

Specifically, the developers in the Fedora Project are proposing to move all executable files into the /usr/bin directory and their libraries into /usr/lib or /usr/lib64, as needed.

The proposal, made by Red Hat developers Harald Hoyer and Kay Sievers, is an attempt to clean up the mess that was made when the /sbin and /bin directories were first split off from each other, and would essentially pull in every component of the operating system to a single mounted volume.

If all of the binaries and libraries were on such a volume, it would be far simpler to run multiple instances of the operating system on different machines on a network, as well as facilitate the use of snapshots, according to Red Hat's Lennart Poettering, who colorfully summed up a defense of the proposal on the [fedora-devel] mailing list.


Karin Bakis
Public Relations
Corporate Marketing
Red Hat, Inc.
Email: kbakis at redhat.com
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