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On 4/25/06, K. Mike Bradley <kmb@××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> I wonder if anyone can explain why /usr was created? |
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The idea is that / can be a very small partition and contains |
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everything necessary to boot and administer the system, and /usr can |
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be a separate partition or logical volume. Some advantages to this |
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setup are: |
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1. If the partition containing /usr is corrupted, the system will |
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still boot, and you have enough tools (fdisk, mkfs, tar, cpio, etc) to |
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repair and restore it. |
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2. /usr can be on a network server. |
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3. On the network server, exporting /usr presents no risk to /. Even |
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if /usr is filled up, the server will continue to function and can |
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still be administered. |
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|
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This is why: |
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|
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- command interpreters like bash, ash, etc go in /bin |
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- network clients and remote shells (ssh, telnet, etc) go in /usr/bin |
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- network, filesystem, and disk utilities go in /bin |
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- large text editors (emacs, etc) go in /usr/bin |
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- small text editors (vi, vim) go in /bin |
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- X, KDE, Gnome, et al are in /usr |
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- and so on... |
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That said, you wll find a lot of desktop systems (mine included) that |
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have / and /usr on the same filesystem. It's a matter of taste and |
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what you will be using the system for whether you should make /usr a |
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separate filesystem or not. |
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|
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-Richard |
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-- |
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