It would be a well restructured file system. So that a user can better handle the files.

Registered by Hofy

There are two problems if I open my harddisk I see /etc /var .... and so on. A normal user did not understand this and he is imprisoned in his home folder and can not use an own structure. The second thing is that if I install for example typo3 that I not know were the program is after the install. So I would suggest to make a new structure like this: On the root we have: /, /home (like before), /programs (contains all installed programs), /linux/etc...(includes all system specific thinks), /home/USERNAME/programs (contains all userspecific program things). Then we did not need the invisible folder in the user directory of installed software. Then I always know where the programs are and I can open the root path and I will find everything I need. Because I thing the current default filesystem structure is not good for home users.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
None
Priority:
Not
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

another duplicate of this oft-rejected spec

bv 2007-06-03 - As far as the user goes, that's handled through the applications menu. The rest of the folders are like the "c:\windows" and "c:\program files" folders in windows - they are structural, and aren't likely to be gotten rid of any time soon. However, Gobolinux provides a unique method for keeping unix compatibility and reorganizing things in a beautiful way that still maintains compatibility. ..here's hoping.. :-) It would do wonders for Linux's user-friendliness.

=====

This is the most pointless idea in the world, let's dump the FHS just to appese people who think they need to know where programs are installed.

=====

*Think* they need to know??? I'm thinking newbs not only in users, but admins etc. too. The whole pk mngr system used by linux isn't attractive, it's a mess: if we need an entire set of databases and a complex management system for installs rather than just a single person, there's a problem. Windows has some of this, but typically you *can* just delete something then use a reg cleaner and poof, better. This is a looooong time complaint, that keeps getting brought-up and beat down. People DO need to know where things are installed so that they can maintain a system etc...even non-techical users even on windows typically have to dive into files at some point to add/remove files programs use or whatever. Especially if they want to jump-in to some slightly (but not really) technical stuff.

The whole point is that linux seriously needs considering building the system for the standpoint of people, not keeping the archaic leftovers from unix. I've seen linux/unix geeks accuse Windows of being archaic and backward...but they forget what came when. It sounds stupid to someone who is accustomed to the current linux set-up: but it doesn't to most others. When I was a business major (I switched to bio, though I like to pick-up programming too) we'd have tech CEOs come-in and tell use they hired regular people to tell programmers "NO, THEY JUST NEED A FRIGGIN' BUTTON". There's a very broad range of reasons to justify modifying the linux file-system structure.

One of the biggest reasons we don't do this is because of many programs being hard-coded: I understand the advantages of hard-coding, however the reason systems like Windows don't do this is because even across languages the system uses paths and a place in the OS which tells programs where resources are located. This is versatile. The Gobo system solves this problem with the virtual structure that hard-coded programs see. For instance, hard-coded english programs often, accessing different parts of the OS, won't work on other langugage installs; but using the features of the OS and if they're set to look-up that info they will work, and they do when these progs are fixed.

Forgive me if I'm too ambiguous, I haven't been in programming a while, but when I was I did learn quite a bit. Since Ubuntu's aim is to be user-friendly is should consider technical modfications to adjust to the broadest category of users possible: and this is a big and frequented request. We could set-up the system to put each program in its own file, while putting commonly shared-components into a folder named "common components" or something...and then have sub-folders categorizing these in order to keep the system not only organized, but also make it user-friendly: then put the shared-components a program requires in a list which the system (and users) can reference and where those pieces go.

If I weren't bio and pre-med I'd love to uptake such a project...but, well... anyways, maybe with time I might pick-up enough expertise to write-up some more lucid proposals. Ubuntu's devs keep saying "this just won't happen, stop asking", but people keep.asking.and.that.should.tell.us.linux.users.something. ("us" is grammatically correct, by the way. [smiley])

Please don't insult people's suggestions, either: you just might scare-off people who could become helpful contributors and ambitious participants. You calling this idea stupid is what thousands of people quite using linux for: this very idea, not to mention thousands of others that newbs and non-technical users propose. It's like people begging gimp to make everything into one window and make it more like photoshop: the gimp users just start insulting people saying "it's good enough", but those making the requests understand that people spend years in school learning design and graphic work on photoshop and so uniformity would help quicker adoption. Then some guy who barely knows what he's doing conforms gimp to the standard (photoshop), even if just slightly (not so sligh anymore), which happens to be more like other graphics programs (like corel, paint.net, etc.) and suddenly there's a large uptake in enthusiasm for that form of the gimp: even if the program becomes less stable...I know, I'm around real people who aren't technical that are using these things. : )f

Be nice, jerk. : ) And I don't mean anything bad by "j.." either. : ) Take care. Be thoughtful. JB

P.S. the ability to install program absolutely anywhere is a major security vulnerability. Isolating programs from the OS, and vice-versa, and being able to peruse programs and associated files/"dlls"/libs/packages in a user-friendly, organized (humanly), way, will permit people to manually ID and take-out threats in the future when linux becomes adopted enough to become a bigger target for hackers. I know people already get owned...just not on mass scales yet.

I don't think this is a forum, but this is never going to happen. If it was technically possible (try modifying 22000 programs to use a new structure, other Linux distributions would laugh at this dumbing down. Including Firefox is bad enough, but changing the Filesystem for "ease of use" is too far. Have any of you got an idea of what the hierarchy should be (and why is it better than the FHS?).

=====

I can see users wanting to do this, but how shall it be implemented without much deep restructuring? Many programs and utilities that expect their files in /var or /etc will also need to be rewritten if we don't want a /var or /etc. --Rarkenin

(?)

Work Items

This blueprint contains Public information 
Everyone can see this information.