Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
This would be a massive change to the entire system, primarily consisting of creating some standard env variables that point to standard directories. Also a switch to application directories would be done.
A linux distribution has been built around this idea and has been successfull at working out the technical details. It's called GoboLinux and you can find out more about it here: http://www.gobolinux.org/?page=at_a_glance They have a piece on common conserns about the idea here: http://www.gobolinux.org/index.php?page=doc/articles/clueless
This would take big steps in both usability and internationalization, which are both top goals for Fedora. I'm hoping that the Fedora leadership is serious enough about pushing the state of the technology that they will seriously consider such an idea. It will have to happen eventually in my opinion.
This is done on the windows world, and is one aspact that makes windows easier to use and more flexible than Fedora. There are 12 env variables on my win xp system that point to directories for various things.
On Sat, Sep 02, 2006 at 02:43:23PM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
No filesystem hierarchy is intuitive. Therefore, until we've got a solution for that, let's not muck around with the perfectly serviceable one we've got.
This is done on the windows world, and is one aspact that makes windows easier to use and more flexible than Fedora. There are 12 env
Actually, it's one of the things that makes Windows a management and security nightmare.
On 9/2/06, Matthew Miller mattdm@mattdm.org wrote:
On Sat, Sep 02, 2006 at 02:43:23PM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
No filesystem hierarchy is intuitive. Therefore, until we've got a solution for that, let's not muck around with the perfectly serviceable one we've got.
Directories named with plain english words are easier to understand than things like /etc and /usr. Do you not see that?
This is done on the windows world, and is one aspact that makes windows easier to use and more flexible than Fedora. There are 12 env
Actually, it's one of the things that makes Windows a management and security nightmare.
I don't see how that is. Having the system directory change from c:\winnt to c:\windows never cost me a single bit of grief, while it did allow for side by side installs.
I realize that this idea is pretty drastic and don't expect you to like the idea at first glance. All I'm asking is that you give it some serious thought rather than shoot it down out of arrogance.
Bryan
On Sat, Sep 02, 2006 at 06:28:54PM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
No filesystem hierarchy is intuitive. Therefore, until we've got a solution for that, let's not muck around with the perfectly serviceable one we've got.
Directories named with plain english words are easier to understand than things like /etc and /usr. Do you not see that?
No, they're just more likely to be misleading.
Did you read the part of the Gobolinux page you sent a reference to that argues against this very claim?
This is done on the windows world, and is one aspact that makes windows easier to use and more flexible than Fedora. There are 12 env
Actually, it's one of the things that makes Windows a management and security nightmare.
I don't see how that is. Having the system directory change from c:\winnt to c:\windows never cost me a single bit of grief, while it did allow for side by side installs.
But that's just the very beginning of it -- inside that directory, there's a random forest of abstrusely named subdirectories, including a mess of 3rd-party and non-system Microsoft app trees and individual files. Oh, including home directories. Then, there's "Program Files", which acts like a very messy /opt, with a bunch of non-packaged managed junk. Except for C:\Program Files\Common, which is magic. The rest of the filesystem layout is an undefined mess.
Windows is such a bad model here that it's not really constructive to even talk about it except as a counterexample.
I realize that this idea is pretty drastic and don't expect you to like the idea at first glance. All I'm asking is that you give it some serious thought rather than shoot it down out of arrogance.
I'm not. I'm shooting it down out of experience with the well-known arguments.
I agree that the traditional hierarchy isn't all that obvious, but it's not all that bad either. The way forward isn't incremental mucking with what things are called, but in rethinking the basic assumptions of the model. (Start with "why a hierarchy?")
Matthew Miller wrote:
(Start with "why a hierarchy?")
The human mind, for one, is extremely adept at categorizing and grouping items. By applying that understanding to the functionality of computers and technology in general, we make that technology more readily accessible (not necessarily "easier" per se).
On Sat, Sep 02, 2006 at 09:35:30PM -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
(Start with "why a hierarchy?")
The human mind, for one, is extremely adept at categorizing and grouping items. By applying that understanding to the functionality of computers and technology in general, we make that technology more readily accessible (not necessarily "easier" per se).
Sure. Categorizing and grouping is great. But is a tree the best representation?
Matthew Miller wrote:
Sure. Categorizing and grouping is great. But is a tree the best representation?
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
søn, 03 09 2006 kl. 15:03 -0700, skrev Peter Gordon:
Matthew Miller wrote:
Sure. Categorizing and grouping is great. But is a tree the best representation?
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
This just SCREAMS translation hell to me, it's bad enough that f-spot and banshee both by default creates and uses english directories in my homedir. f-spot being the biggest offender since you can't change the directory name.
Now if we are talking about some kind of vFolder it would be entirely possible to hide the nastiness that is FHS (and by deity I hate the FHS) and we could solve translation issues as well I think since a vFolder could be created in runtime and wouldn't rely on physical presence on the harddrive. I imagine Beagle or Tracker would be our friends in this area.
If a proposal to fix this once and for all is to be made, let's addresse all the issues and do the work upstream where possible. Simply renaming the directories will be not solve every issue the FHS has nor will it provide the extensions we need on the desktop to make assumptions as to placement of files by type.
The only sane thing to do is to create a vFolder on the fly on a per session basis using search results from something like Beagle. We could thus assume putting photos in ~/.photos and having a generated search folder for photos localized (encompassing .photos and everywhere else in ~), in my case that would be ~/Billeder (da_DK.UTF-8) for use in Nautilus and as a bonus it would be visible in the terminal as well if we did it correctly at least.
- David Nielsen
David Nielsen wrote:
søn, 03 09 2006 kl. 15:03 -0700, skrev Peter Gordon:
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
This just SCREAMS translation hell to me, it's bad enough that f-spot and banshee both by default creates and uses english directories in my homedir. f-spot being the biggest offender since you can't change the directory name.
Exactly why I like, for one, like the idea of having standardized names for the directories: /usr, /lib, /srv, /var, /var/log, etc. :)
Peter Gordon wrote:
Exactly why I like, for one, like the idea of having standardized names for the directories: /usr, /lib, /srv, /var, /var/log, etc. :)
That should be "... why I, for one, like ...". Pardon my apparent lack of caffeine. :)
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 04:09:00PM -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
[...]
Exactly why I like, for one, like the idea of having standardized names for the directories: /usr, /lib, /srv, /var, /var/log, etc. :)
Which one of those is for the music videos?
Matthew Miller wrote:
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 04:09:00PM -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
[...]
Exactly why I like, for one, like the idea of having standardized names for the directories: /usr, /lib, /srv, /var, /var/log, etc. :)
Which one of those is for the music videos?
Those I mentioned are system-level directories.
How you store things on your own depends on how you like to organize your system. I tend to keep large things like videos and ISO images on a secondary hard disk (/mnt/Storage), while smaller things like documents and music files I keep in my home directory (~/Music, ~/Documents, ~/Documents/Schoolwork, ~/Photos, ~/Wallpapers, etc.)
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 03:03:53PM -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
Sure. Categorizing and grouping is great. But is a tree the best representation?
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
What you've described here is a flat list, not a tree.
Matthew Miller wrote:
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 03:03:53PM -0700, Peter Gordon wrote:
Sure. Categorizing and grouping is great. But is a tree the best representation?
In something like this, yes. The hierarchy continues subdividing the filesystem into distinct areas, similar to how one might organize their home directory with a folder for music, one for documents, one for videos, one for pictures, etc.
What you've described here is a flat list, not a tree.
Thanks for pointing this out. I intended to exemplify something like what I have in my home directory:
In ~/Music, I have directories for each artist I listen to, then within those I have directories for each album by that artist, then within _those_ I place the audio tracks. So, for instance, my copy of Arch Enemy's "Wages of Sin" album is stored as FLACs in "~/Music/Arch Enemy/Wages of Sin"
As another example, my ~/Documents directory contains directories for Work, Schoolwork, and one entitled "Random Musings." Stuff I do for my job is placed in ~/Documents/Work, while the "Random Musings" subdirectory is where I store various poetry and/or articles I'm writing. Within the Schoolwork subdirectory, I have one subdirectory for each class, so if I had something for my physics class this semester, I'd store it in a directory path of "~/Documents/Schoolwork/Phys 221" for example.
Hope that helps.
You're all writing about $HOME organisation, which is orthogonal to the FHS since the current FHS does not specify it.
And yes cleaning up the $HOME mess (hidden dirs/files with random conventions) would be nice, but it's a major work and requires at least Gnome+KDE buy-in (then years of hunting offending apps)
I agree that the traditional hierarchy isn't all that obvious, but it's not all that bad either. The way forward isn't incremental mucking with what things are called, but in rethinking the basic assumptions of the model. (Start with "why a hierarchy?")
Doing away with the hierarchy reminds me of the way that macs try to sweep the actual file system under the rug and hide it behind a gui. That might be fine for dumb end users but as a power user it totally turns me off.
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 12:24:04AM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
I agree that the traditional hierarchy isn't all that obvious, but it's not all that bad either. The way forward isn't incremental mucking with what things are called, but in rethinking the basic assumptions of the model. (Start with "why a hierarchy?")
Doing away with the hierarchy reminds me of the way that macs try to sweep the actual file system under the rug and hide it behind a gui. That might be fine for dumb end users but as a power user it totally turns me off.
So, you'd rather paper-over with renamings. *shrug*.
Bryan Livingston wrote:
Directories named with plain english words are easier to understand than things like /etc and /usr. Do you not see that?
Easier to understand in what way? There's something called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard [1], which defines explicitly what each directory in a Unix-like system is for. (There is also the hier(7) manual page that contains the same information.)
Also, please remember that English is not the only language in use for most GNU/Linux distributions. For example, instead of "/etc" you'd have to account or using "Configuration" (English) or "Configuración" (Spanish) or even things like "Configuração" (Portuguese).
I don't see how that is. Having the system directory change from c:\winnt to c:\windows never cost me a single bit of grief, while it did allow for side by side installs.
Concurrent installs of different versions/etc can be done in GNU/Linux as well. Is there an aspect of this that you're referring to that prevents or discourages this?
[1] http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
Also, please remember that English is not the only language in use for most GNU/Linux distributions. For example, instead of "/etc" you'd have to account or using "Configuration" (English) or "Configuración" (Spanish) or even things like "Configuração" (Portuguese).
Exactly, if the directories were referenced from an environmental variable, localized directories would become possible.
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 12:18:28AM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
Also, please remember that English is not the only language in use for most GNU/Linux distributions. For example, instead of "/etc" you'd have to account or using "Configuration" (English) or "Configuración" (Spanish) or even things like "Configuração" (Portuguese).
Exactly, if the directories were referenced from an environmental variable, localized directories would become possible.
Did you read the Gobolinux FAQ entry on this?
Concurrent installs of different versions/etc can be done in GNU/Linux as well. Is there an aspect of this that you're referring to that prevents or discourages this?
With Linux I'm only familiar with doing it on separate partitions. In windows at least you can run side by side on a single file system.
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 12:21:55AM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
Concurrent installs of different versions/etc can be done in GNU/Linux as well. Is there an aspect of this that you're referring to that prevents or discourages this?
With Linux I'm only familiar with doing it on separate partitions. In windows at least you can run side by side on a single file system.
As I said before, that's only because Windows is terrible at handling partitions.
Matthew Miller wrote:
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 12:21:55AM -0600, Bryan Livingston wrote:
Concurrent installs of different versions/etc can be done in GNU/Linux as well. Is there an aspect of this that you're referring to that prevents or discourages this?
With Linux I'm only familiar with doing it on separate partitions. In windows at least you can run side by side on a single file system.
As I said before, that's only because Windows is terrible at handling partitions.
In the end, the hierarchy is arbitrary, you can write any interpretation to cover it up and make it appear different, as we have seen on OSX. Personally, I come from the Linux as a religion corner, unless you can show without doubt that the filesystem is essentially flawed, then you are messing with something sacro-sanct out of self-importance. Of all the things on the dock to work on in the Linux environment, changing the filesystem opens up the least number of possibilities for advancement in concrete usability.
/Jason Knight
On 9/2/06, Bryan Livingston bryanlivingston@gmail.com wrote:
I realize that this idea is pretty drastic and don't expect you to like the idea at first glance. All I'm asking is that you give it some serious thought rather than shoot it down out of arrogance.
Take your earth shattering ideas over to the mailinglists which work on the FHS if you are seriously interested in working with people to change things as fundamental as the filesystem directory structure naming. Remember that part of Fedora's mission is to work WITH upstream developers as much as possible. If you and the gobolinux people really think this is the wave of the future, put your best foot forward and engage the people who control the FHS document. I would however caution you to use far less provocative and emotional a writing style. And do your best to avoid such classically ironic comments such as the above arrogant insinuation concerning the arrogance of others. I personally think it would be quite...arrogant... for the Fedora leadership to make such a fundamental change on the strength of your passionate, if there hasn't been a discussion with the people driving the established filesystem standardization process about your idea.
For reference, here is the page of interest concerning FHS discussions: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
-jef"english-centric views are so narrow-minded, so 20th century, so decedent western society...if we are going to make a drastic change.. lets rename the filesystem in chinese"spaleta
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 9/2/06, Bryan Livingston bryanlivingston@gmail.com wrote:
I realize that this idea is pretty drastic and don't expect you to like the idea at first glance. All I'm asking is that you give it some serious thought rather than shoot it down out of arrogance.
Take your earth shattering ideas over to the mailinglists which work on the FHS if you are seriously interested in working with people to change things as fundamental as the filesystem directory structure naming. Remember that part of Fedora's mission is to work WITH upstream developers as much as possible. If you and the gobolinux people really think this is the wave of the future, put your best foot forward and engage the people who control the FHS document. I would however caution you to use far less provocative and emotional a writing style. And do your best to avoid such classically ironic comments such as the above arrogant insinuation concerning the arrogance of others. I personally think it would be quite...arrogant... for the Fedora leadership to make such a fundamental change on the strength of your passionate, if there hasn't been a discussion with the people driving the established filesystem standardization process about your idea.
Here here, I for one and getting tired of this in my inbox.
For reference, here is the page of interest concerning FHS discussions: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
-jef"english-centric views are so narrow-minded, so 20th century, so decedent western society...if we are going to make a drastic change.. lets rename the filesystem in chinese"spaleta
I agree with this :)
-jason"Computer systems should be designed in such a way as to be incomprehensible to the newcomer and elite hacker alike, computers must be an equalizer in so much as we are all equally ignorant, an esoteric quest for understanding if you will. Making things easy is the Windows way at the cost of control, making things beautiful is the Apple way at the cost of freedom, making things functional is the Linux way at the cost of immediate comprehension."knight
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 9/2/06, Bryan Livingston bryanlivingston@gmail.com wrote:
I realize that this idea is pretty drastic and don't expect you to like the idea at first glance.
Take your earth shattering ideas over to the mailinglists which work on the FHS if you are seriously interested in working with people to change things as fundamental as the filesystem directory structure naming. Remember that part of Fedora's mission is to work WITH upstream developers as much as possible. ...
+1
(Thanks Jeff, couldn't have said it better myself).
-- Rex
There is an alternative to dumbing down the file system, that's wisen-up the user.
From a novice point of view I suggested something like this in this bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168642
All the information's available, all the tools are available: 'tool-tips'; Notes tab in Gnomes Properties dialogue. Just populate the Notes with useful educational information about the file system which by default displays as a 'tool-tip' over various elements of the file system (when it becomes annoying and redundant comment the Notes out, or some such, so they go away).
M.
Bryan Livingston wrote:
Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
This would be a massive change to the entire system, primarily consisting of creating some standard env variables that point to standard directories. Also a switch to application directories would be done.
A linux distribution has been built around this idea and has been successfull at working out the technical details. It's called GoboLinux and you can find out more about it here: http://www.gobolinux.org/?page=at_a_glance They have a piece on common conserns about the idea here: http://www.gobolinux.org/index.php?page=doc/articles/clueless
This would take big steps in both usability and internationalization, which are both top goals for Fedora. I'm hoping that the Fedora leadership is serious enough about pushing the state of the technology that they will seriously consider such an idea. It will have to happen eventually in my opinion.
This is done on the windows world, and is one aspact that makes windows easier to use and more flexible than Fedora. There are 12 env variables on my win xp system that point to directories for various things.
Bryan Livingston (bryanlivingston@gmail.com) said:
Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
OK, why is this *AT ALL* appropriate for the board - what's your purpose here?
If you can't convince the project itself, why are you bringing this to an administrative entity?
Bill
Bill Nottingham wrote:
Bryan Livingston (bryanlivingston@gmail.com) said:
Do away with the standard unix directory heirarchy. It's archaic, non-intuitive, non-internationalized and dangerous from an application management perspective.
OK, why is this *AT ALL* appropriate for the board - what's your purpose here?
If you can't convince the project itself, why are you bringing this to an administrative entity?
Bill
I think people quite often confuse Fedora Project Board to be a technical decisions team (which I think should be formed by merging FESCo and people from Fedora Core) rather than a administrative team which is partially our fault since we dont have any documents explaining our governance mode, policy and relationship of different teams such as the board and the steering committees.
I will get to doing that soon.
Rahul
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