On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Dan Rue wrote: > FreeBSD has a *very* strict file hierarchy (man hier in freebsd or see > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hier&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+6.3-RELEASE&format=html). > What this means is that there is strict separation between the core > operating system and third party packages. The core OS includes the > kernel, but also a couple of editors (vi and ee), a couple of shells > (tcsh, csh, sh), core libs, bind 9, and a few other things. The nice > thing about that is that those things are guaranteed by the FreeBSD team > and you never have to worry about the most basic parts of your OS being > damaged by a package upgrade, for instance. > > I remember a few years ago watching dselect in debian remove the entire > OS, including the kernel and dselect itself. While it was a PEBKAC/user > error - that can never happen in FreeBSD (using package tools). In > fact, you can mount the base part of freebsd read-only, to really > prevent such occurrences. This would be someone logged on as root, I assume (i.e., the sys admin). Is it not possible to mount corresponding files in the Linux system as read-only? > One nice thing about all of this from my (the admin's) perspective, is > that FreeBSD's base config files live in /etc, and ALL third party > configurations live in /usr/local/etc. In fact, all third party > ports/packages get installed to /usr/local. No matter how badly you > hose up your box, it is safe to rm -rf /usr/local/ and (and /var/db/pkg > and maybe one or two other spots) and start over. Can't things also be installed on a Linux system so that they are entirely within /usr/local? That's what I usually do with ./configure prefix=/usr/local But that is the typical default path, so the prefix is usually not specified. I like your idea but I don't see why it can't be done in Linux too. Maybe it's a lot easier to pull it off in FreeBSD. > Now, I am not trying to troll tclug here; just trying to clarify a core > difference between FreeBSD and linux. Your comments are much appreciated, Dan. I also am not trying to start a battle, I just want to learn some things. Mike