Last post, I pointed out a thread going on in Ubuntu concerning the confusion of the file system, and how it should be changed. It’s a topic that has been discussed before, and there is one distribution that has gone ahead with it’s own layout. The main point of argument (later in the thread) seems to be that the file structure *needs* to change because it’s causing confusion among the users. I’m not for this change at all. Not because I’m an oldschooler, but because I feel it would cause a lot more problems.

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (link below) was set up a while back in order to keep things across distributions uniform. Breaking this standard would break a lot of things, such as the ability to download a source package and be able to compile it without changes to the make / install files. Upstream packages from the likes of KDE, Gnome and other vendors would need to be reconfigured, requiring more time from the Ubuntu developers and possibly introducing new bugs. Downloading and installing from source would now become an issue. The make and install files would need to be changed prior to installation, or developers would have to release a special Ubuntu source version, or a new “conversion” utility for Ubuntu would need to be written.

A new structure would mean a lot of re-learning for current users, and cause headaches for system admins. That headache may cost Ubuntu market share in the server realm, especially in multi-platform environments. I would much rather know that if I’m on Redhat or Ubuntu, generally system settings will be living under /etc, where if this change were to happen, settings might live in /etc on RedHat but under /system/settings in Ubuntu. I work on multiple Unix / Linux systems daily, and they are pretty uniform when it comes to directories. I’m sure a lot of system administrators would not want to re-learn file structure just for one distribution; They would go with what they know works.

In the forum thread (link below), one person mentioned that this should be a simple change. I feel that either this person is nuts, or just doesn’t understand the gravity of the change to be made. A few of the comments even suggest that the reason for the change is lack of courage. Is it really a lack of courage to keep a distribution somewhat compatible with the software used to build said distribution, than risk losing users and server installs for the sake of directories?

Another user likened the current file system to a desk with everything on top and no organization whatsoever. That’s really untrue. If that were the case, I would see all of the files sitting in /. Personally, I think the whole issue boils down to a matter of personal opinion, which it really is. That’s what this is. My opinion and thoughts on the matter. Could the problems be resolved during implementation of this new file system? Perhaps, but at the cost of time. Development resources would be committed to working on implementing this new structure rather than fixing existing issues for the next version of Ubuntu. I would much rather see the time spent on something that truly needs fixing rather than something that is perceived to need fixing.

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