A few informational consideration on filesystem structure etc.

Registered by John Bradley Bulsterbaum

I don't want to suggest anything like this https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/userfriendly-filesystem-structure (which was earlier); however I'd like to make some requests/suggestions. First, it might be adviseable to consider the security ambiguities with permitting packages to install wherever they like on a system, rather than separating them from it: how can the advantages be kept while minimizing the possible destructiveness this could cause? Second, a big complaint with a system like Mac OS is "it's the most disorganized operating system" (quote); a system like WIndows has the files in [Windows (operating system)], [Program Files], [User Files], [Hard Drives A,B,C...]; it's pretty organized. Mac OSX confuses people...Linux isn't too much better. What's more important to consider with Linux, though, is pretty much the "Home" folder, and the subfolders that come with it (like Media folders, Documents, etc.); it could be a good idea to do a few things to Linux in this regard:

Make a tool like "TweakXP" for Ubuntu to change certain settings (and make it work across Gnome AND KDE) to set folders' locations to different ones. "Home", for instance, on my computer (after fighting the system and a command line) is on another Partition to keep it between OSes; its subfolders might also be organized differently, for instance I'm highly organized with:

Media
  - Audio
  - Visual
      - Icons (as in "Iconography")
         - Static
             - Photos
             - Pictures (i.e. drawings/etc.)
         - Dynamic
      - Script
         - Docs
         - ...

It would be greatly appreciated for more fluid settings. I don't, for instance, like "Media" to refer to just audio-visual entertainment-files. I like to apply it over its whole range of meaning and then label things properly: nit-picky sure, but at least in Windows I can re-set "My Documents" to another name and location through the TweakXP tool, and folders like "My Music", "My Pictures", and so on to specialized names/locations...with almost no hassle or worry about the command-line, AND they stay in the special-folders section of the start menu: on Linux they just seem to dissapear. Bug #1 isn't going to get fixed until Linux is as transparently flexible with ease to the general end-user without the command-line and without the apparent (if not actual) disorganization. Throwing program and user files right in with system files, however, is NOT a good idea: that's why even when Window's system does this it's recommended to move files to another partition, and that's why, at least, there are not only shortcuts/buttons everywhere in windows to reach these files, but there's also built-in ways to get there like typing-in "Desktop" or "My Music" (or in my case "Media", "Icons") right into the address bar: complexity without showing any to the end-user!

I think with the possibilities in Open-Source these kinds of things could be done far better, more beautifully, yet more functionally and pleasantly.

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