Re: Virtual Directory Structure

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 06:59:36PM +0200, Jorg Rathlev wrote:
> > >  [+] My Home   /home/foo
> > 
> > Duplication? IMHO it should be under /home/ like the rest
> Yes, it should be under /home/ as well, but [...]

I should point out that not all Unix or Unix-like systems put user
directories in /home, (e.g. it's more likely to be /usr/home on a
BSD system, or maybe /export/home/user linked to /home/machine-name/user
where NIS is used).  Large corporate environments often need flexibility
here too, and whatever one may think of large corporate environments,
the gnome project needs them.

> The shell uses ~/ as a similar shortcut.
Sun's desktop library (I forget what it was called, -lextra maybe) included
ruotines to expand filenames that handled ~, so in any of their openwindows
programs you could use ~ (and I think *).

I am mentioning this because consistency within the environment is
very inmportant.

> be made in english language as well. BTW, I think "This computer" (for
> the english version) would be even better than "My computer", but
> English is not my native language, so I might be wrong.

If you are running the gnome desktop on a server, and yuor local
workstation is diskless, just an X terminal or SunRay or whatever,
"This Computer" is not the one running gnome, and neither is "My Computer".
Both names are badly chosen for a networked environment.

We need to be careful not to follow Microsoft or Apple blindly, but
to be informed by them.  I am not getting at anyone here, but it is
easy to forget.  We have a fundamental difference in that we have
a networked multiuser multiplatform Unix system -- that is our strength,
not something we must hide.  Apple, with Aqua, is making it into a
single-user less-networked environment in many ways because that's
the general culture of Macintosh users.

For my part I favour leaving the names as they are, and allowing
extra description, e.g. in tooltips.
/bin
    This is where essential system programs are located.
    The programs here are part of the operating system; they
    are documented in the "geek help" section of the Info Browser.

:-)

The supplemental documentation should indicate the consequences of
removing the given directory, and help the user to learn more,
rather than saying, "you don't need to worry about this, it's too
complex for you"...

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam holoweb net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
Author, Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley August 2000
Co-author: The XML Specification Guide, Wiley 1999; Mastering XML, Sybex 2001