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Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 10:37:17 +0300
From: Egor Duda <deo AT logos-m DOT ru>
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Reply-To: Egor Duda <deo AT logos-m DOT ru>
Organization: DEO
Message-ID: <9442.000229@logos-m.ru>
To: <cygwin-developers AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com>,
        Mumit Khan <khan AT NanoTech DOT Wisc DOT EDU>
Subject: Re: FS layout issues for v1.1 (eg., /bin and /usr/bin)
References: <Pine DOT HPP DOT 3 DOT 96 DOT 1000228182811 DOT 25928A-100000 AT hp2 DOT xraylith DOT wisc DOT edu>
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Hi!

Feb 29 2000 Mumit Khan <khan AT NanoTech DOT Wisc DOT EDU> wrote:

MK> I had recently asked Chris if he would support the idea of making /bin
MK> and /usr/bin point to the same directory (the `how' comes later), and
MK> he'd asked me bring this out here for a wider discussion. I'm going
MK> to expand the discussion a bit to also talk about where the system
MK> includes and libraries go.

[]


MK> 1 it used an "interesting" layout where the binaries go to /bin and
MK>   other things go into /usr. In GNU package terminology, it's equiv
MK>   to specifying ``--prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/''.

MK>   I'd like to see /bin and /usr/bin "point" to the same place in the
MK>   filesystem for the next net release.

MK> 2 The system includes are still buried in /usr/<PLATFORM>/include and
MK>   system libraries in /usr/<PLATFORM>/lib, where PLATFORM is something
MK>   like i686-pc-cygwin, i686-cygwin, etc.

MK>   I'd like to see system includes and libraries go in /usr/include and
MK>   /usr/lib respectively, *and* /usr/lib and /lib point to the same place
MK>   in the filesystem.

MK> One consequence of (1) is that you have to be extra careful in building
MK> and installing packages (real problem IMO), and the other is that we
MK> lose symmetry (I like symmetry). Historically, Unix systems have always
MK> had a /bin and /usr/bin, and the reason had mostly to do with expensive
MK> disks, diskless or semi-diskless workstations and other things not really
MK> relevant today.

afaik, most relevant reason of doing /bin and /usr different is
ability to recover from crashes. /bin (/ -- to be more precise) is
intended to be mounted read-only and allow guaranteed system boot-up and
remote administration in case of power failure. from that point of
view /usr holds non-critical files. alas, in win32 world it's hard to
achieve (because users should be able to write to %SystemRoot%).
anyway, i think that minimizing disk writes on system partition is a
"right thing (tm)" for system stability.

MK> Having /bin is important since that's the only thing we
MK> can depend on (#!/bin/sh); at the same time, we want symmetry, and would
MK> like /usr/bin as well. On systems such as Cygwin, there is no reason to
MK> maintain both separately, and these should simply point to the same place.

MK> The question is -- how do we make /bin and /usr/bin the same?

MK> a. Symlinks: cygcheck could check and report this if the user somehow
MK>    deletes it.

the only drawback i see is performance going down. we all know that
symlinks are rather slow.

Egor.            mailto:deo AT logos-m DOT ru ICQ 5165414 FidoNet 2:5020/496.19