[TUHS] Abstractions
Charles H. Sauer
sauer at technologists.com
Wed Feb 24 07:02:00 AEST 2021
To add to the inventory below:
Dell SVR4 /bin is a symlink to /usr/bin
NEXTSTEP/486 3.3 /bin and /usr/bin are separate
On 2/23/2021 1:37 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:
> The recent discussions on the TUHS list of whether /bin and /usr/bin
> are different, or symlinked, brought to mind the limited disk and tape
> sizes of the 1970s and 1980s. Especially the lower-cost tape
> technologies had issues with correct recognition of an end-of-tape
> condition, making it hard to span a dump across tape volumes, and
> strongly suggesting that directory tree sizes be limited to what could
> fit on a single tape.
>
> I made an experiment today across a broad range of operating systems
> (many with multiple versions in our test farm), and produced these two
> tables, where version numbers are included only if the O/S changed
> practices:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Systems with /bin a symlink to /usr/bin (or both to yet another common
> directory) [42 major variants]:
>
> ArchLinux Kali RedHat 8
> Arco Kubuntu 19, 20 Q4OS
> Bitrig Lite ScientificLinux 7
> CentOS 7, 8 Lubuntu 19 Septor
> ClearLinux Mabox Solaris 10, 11
> Debian 10, 11 Magiea Solydk
> Deepin Manjaro Sparky
> DilOS Mint 20 Springdale
> Dyson MXLinux 19 Ubuntu 19, 20, 21
> Fedora Neptune UCS
> Gnuinos Netrunner Ultimate
> Gobolinux Oracle Linux Unleashed
> Hefftor Parrot 4.7 Void
> IRIX PureOS Xubuntu 19, 20
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Systems with separate /bin and /usr/bin [60 major variants]:
>
> Alpine Hipster OS108
> AltLinux KaOS Ovios
> Antix KFreeBSD PacBSD
> Bitrig Kubuntu 18 Parrot 4.5
> Bodhi LibertyBSD PCBSD
> CentOS 5, 6 LMDE PCLinuxOS
> ClonOS Lubuntu 17 Peppermint
> Debian 7--10 LXLE Salix
> DesktopBSD macOS ScientificLinux 6
> Devuan MidnightBSD SlackEX
> DragonFlyBSD Mint 18--20 Slackware
> ElementaryOS MirBSD Solus
> FreeBSD 9--13 MXLinux 17, 18 T2
> FuryBSD NetBSD 6-1010 Trident
> Gecko NomadBSD Trisquel
> Gentoo OmniOS TrueOS
> GhostBSD OmniTribblix Ubuntu 14--18
> GNU/Hurd OpenBSD Xubuntu 18
> HardenedBSD OpenMandriva Zenwalk
> Helium openSUSE Zorinos
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Some names appear in both tables, indicating a transition from
> separate directories to symlinked directories in more recent O/S
> releases.
>
> Many of these system names are spelled in mixed lettercase, and if
> I've botched some of them, I extend my apologies to their authors.
>
> Some of those systems run on multiple CPU architectures, and our test
> farm exploits that; however, I found no instance of the CPU type
> changing the separation or symbolic linking of /bin and /usr/bin.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 -
> - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 -
> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu -
> - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe at acm.org beebe at computer.org -
> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
--
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