[724] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: {/bin,/etc}/athena
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Salvatore Valente)
Tue Sep 27 22:42:23 1994
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 1994 22:42:08 -0400
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: [722]
From: Salvatore Valente <svalente@MIT.EDU>
Hello.
I'd like to eliminate the /bin/athena and
/etc/athena links to /usr/athena. I don't know the full history
behind these
On public athena workstations, many programs are found in /bin/athena
and /etc/athena.
but I think it's better to eliminate them now before we
have a backward-compatibility problem with users who don't know enough
to deal on their own.
Huh? Eliminating them would cause a backwards compatibility problem.
We would no longer be backwards compatible with public Athena
workstations.
This is mostly a matter of breaking the links on quiche, rebuilding
and reinstalling the Linux-Athena packages, and fixing anything tthat
breaks.
Everything would break. We'd have to hunt down dozens of .c files
that reference /etc/athena and Makefiles that install in /bin/athena.
No, this wouldn't be difficult. But it does affect a lot of stuff.
If someone thinks this is a bad idea, please explain;
I think it's a bad idea. Frankly, I think the whole Athena filesystem
layout sucks. If I was going to reorganize it, I'd make sure
everything is in /usr/athena and create /usr/athena/sbin for the
appropriate stuff and make the correct divisions between
/usr/athena/etc and /usr/athena/lib... That is, I'd do more than
simply eliminating /bin/athena and /etc/athena. But it's not up to
us. If we want to look like Athena workstations, we have to take the
good with the bad, and have files accessable through the pathnames
that they have on Athena workstations.
-Sal.
