Comment by somehnguy
4 years ago
I've read that a handful of times (whenever trying to figure out where to put some new random thing), and still have never come to a clear conclusion. Even better, because there are so many similar places, you might choose completely different ones depending on the day of the week and your current mood.
Too much choice for things like this is harmful IMO. Deep down I truly couldn't care less where the files end up, as long as that place is the 'right' place. There are too many 'right' places which makes it hard to find random things at a later date or when on a box you're not super familiar with. It's also a complete waste of time to think about it at all.
It’s not just you: Every distro is its own special snowflake and patches the programs they distribute to store files in a different place.
The “standard” doesn’t tell you what directory structure to use inside /etc to group related config files. The “standard” doesn’t tell you where an HTTP server should serve its files. Everyone just does their own thing which makes upstream docs incorrect and useless for newcomers.
> The “standard” doesn’t tell you what directory structure to use inside /etc to group related config files. The “standard” doesn’t tell you where an HTTP server should serve its files. Everyone just does their own thing which makes upstream docs incorrect and useless for newcomers.
The FHS, does actually answer both of of those questions. Files inside /etc/ should be grouped in subdirectories[0] andd the HTTP server should serve user-specified website files from /srv[1] and normal distro-provided files (such as the apache test page) from /var[2].
[0]: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s07.htm...
[1]: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s17.htm...
[2]: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch05.html#p...
"use subdirectories" is probably the most handwavey answer possible, aside from maybe "just put it somewhere, lol". I feel like the standard could provide some sort of guidance on how to name folders or something.
> HTTP server should serve user-specified website files from /srv
I’ve never seen that in my life, but I’m sure someone does that. This is one of those cases where the people who follow the standard are increasing fragmentation
> I've read that a handful of times (whenever trying to figure out where to put some new random thing), and still have never come to a clear conclusion.
So, given some data, say a file and/or directory, maybe from saving a Web page, that is relevant to subjects A, K, T, and Z, where in the file system directory trees to put that data?
My solution: Put the data in a directory for one of the subjects A, K, T, or Z without thinking very hard about which of these. Then go to a file I call FACTS.DAT (right, an old idea with an old 8.3 file name!). I maintain that file with a few, simple editor macros. So, sure, the file is a catch-all for entries of random short facts. And each entry starts with a time-date stamp and a list of key words. So, in the case of subjects A, K, T, or Z, include the key words appropriate for each of those. Then in the body of the entry, put the tree name of the file/directory where did store the data.
In a few seconds with my favorite text editor I can append an entry or search for an entry.
So far this year I have put 686 entries in the file FACTS.DAT for about 2.1 entries per day. For anything like current personal computers, handling such a file is trivial.
The idea works great!