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miriam_eFor some time now I've been trying learn how to use Linux well... though, I have to admit, not in a concentrated, concerted effort. I've been attacking it piecemeal, hoping to absorb the info simply by immersion. It has worked well with many things I've done in the past, but it doesn't seem terribly successful in helping me get to grips with the file tree layout in Linux. I keep getting the impression that it owes a lot to bandaids patched onto other bandaids. This is one of the major problems with Windows... at least until Microsoft started all over again with WindowsNT.
In Linux there are all these bin and sbin directories -- the two at the root of the filesystem, then another couple in /usr, and yet another couple in /usr/local. I keep wondering, why so many? Other systems work fine keeping all their core executables in just one, or maybe two directories.
And the names of the major directories:
etc - for configuration files. Why not call it something descriptive, like... oh, I don't know, "config"??
usr - contains files that should not be changed by the user. Huh??? It is for files that you don't want to be overwritten when the system is upgraded.
var - is for temporary files, like log files and such... like tmp except it isn't. Hmmm...
What is worse, different flavors of Linux depart from the "standard" layout to greater or lesser degrees.
There comes a point when the time required to learn all this exceeds its potential usefulness. And unfortunately, all too often, learning this stuff is a bit like that joke: to understand recursion, first you must understand recursion.
The explanations in Linux manuals often require that you already understand what is being described in order to understand the explanation. [sigh]
Now, I don't think I'm a stupid person. I've taught myself almost 20 computer languages, and become proficient with about half of those. Some of those languages are assembly languages. I've designed and built digital circuits to perform a number of functions. If I have problems coming to grips with Linux, how can people who aren't even interested in computers going to fare?
Puppy is a lot easier to get my mind around than most of the other Linuxes I've fiddled with, but even it still leaves a lot to be desired.
It makes me positively nostalgic for the Amiga and for OS-9. Now there were a couple of clean operating systems. Not that they didn't have problems and shortcomings, but it really didn't take much effort to understand the layout and function of the system as a whole. A day or so invested in it and you were up and running, doing useful stuff. With Linux, Windows, and other "modern" operating systems you just better hope nothing ever goes wrong or that you don't need to track down a configuration problem, because you could be looking at days wasted in solving it.
In Linux there are all these bin and sbin directories -- the two at the root of the filesystem, then another couple in /usr, and yet another couple in /usr/local. I keep wondering, why so many? Other systems work fine keeping all their core executables in just one, or maybe two directories.
And the names of the major directories:
etc - for configuration files. Why not call it something descriptive, like... oh, I don't know, "config"??
usr - contains files that should not be changed by the user. Huh??? It is for files that you don't want to be overwritten when the system is upgraded.
var - is for temporary files, like log files and such... like tmp except it isn't. Hmmm...
What is worse, different flavors of Linux depart from the "standard" layout to greater or lesser degrees.
There comes a point when the time required to learn all this exceeds its potential usefulness. And unfortunately, all too often, learning this stuff is a bit like that joke: to understand recursion, first you must understand recursion.
The explanations in Linux manuals often require that you already understand what is being described in order to understand the explanation. [sigh]
Now, I don't think I'm a stupid person. I've taught myself almost 20 computer languages, and become proficient with about half of those. Some of those languages are assembly languages. I've designed and built digital circuits to perform a number of functions. If I have problems coming to grips with Linux, how can people who aren't even interested in computers going to fare?
Puppy is a lot easier to get my mind around than most of the other Linuxes I've fiddled with, but even it still leaves a lot to be desired.
It makes me positively nostalgic for the Amiga and for OS-9. Now there were a couple of clean operating systems. Not that they didn't have problems and shortcomings, but it really didn't take much effort to understand the layout and function of the system as a whole. A day or so invested in it and you were up and running, doing useful stuff. With Linux, Windows, and other "modern" operating systems you just better hope nothing ever goes wrong or that you don't need to track down a configuration problem, because you could be looking at days wasted in solving it.