From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: Does git belong in root's $PATH? Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:00:23 -0800 Message-ID: <43C08047.6090701@zytor.com> References: <43C0025A.9080406@op5.se> <43C02725.2020702@zytor.com> <43C05ED5.1090603@op5.se> <43C05F4C.8050908@zytor.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Jan 08 04:00:57 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EvQnf-0004Io-Vo for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:00:57 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161154AbWAHDA3 (ORCPT ); Sat, 7 Jan 2006 22:00:29 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1161155AbWAHDA3 (ORCPT ); Sat, 7 Jan 2006 22:00:29 -0500 Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([192.83.249.54]:32717 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1161154AbWAHDA3 (ORCPT ); Sat, 7 Jan 2006 22:00:29 -0500 Received: from [172.27.0.18] (c-67-180-238-27.hsd1.ca.comcast.net [67.180.238.27]) (authenticated bits=0) by terminus.zytor.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k0830N7V016449 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sat, 7 Jan 2006 19:00:24 -0800 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7-1.1.fc4 (X11/20050929) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en To: walt In-Reply-To: X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.87.1, clamav-milter version 0.87 on localhost X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.7 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00, RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL autolearn=no version=3.0.4 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.4 (2005-06-05) on terminus.zytor.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: walt wrote: > H. Peter Anvin wrote: > >>/usr used to be what is now called /home. What you're describing above >>is the current usage. > > History lessons are valuable for us youngsters ;o) Can you give us a > brief description of what motivated such a change? (Just as important, > of course, is whether the original motives have changed or disappeared.) > This is the history as far as I understand it. Keep in mind I was only 8 years old in 1980, and I think I first learned about how Unix worked in 1985 or 1986, so not all of this is first-hand. /usr was initially used for home directories (user directories.) Both fore reasons as have been previously discussed (remember, most easy multi-user systems were a lot friendlier than one would expect today), and because the root disk often filled up, it became common for users to put binaries in /usr/bin, and often the sysadmin, too. As the need for system security tightened, by the 80's this was a pretty unusable configuration. Since home directories were specified in /etc/passwd, those could, and often were, located elsewhere -- much easier than trying to change the now-established conventions of /usr/bin et al. A lot of systems in the 80's were massively multiuser anyway (workstations were coming in but were rare), and so you'd frequently see paths like /u2/h/hpa for example (my actual home directory location on our college server.) The convention of using /home for home directories seems to have evolved out of necessity when networking came in use on a large scale (NFS, automounter, etc), probably in the late 80's-early 90's. By the time Linux emerged in 1991 it was pretty well-established on smaller systems; larger systems still tended to use local conventions inherited from previous generation systems. -hpa