Thanks for the info. I'm from a Solaris background so that's why I didn't realise that hidden directories are a "feature" of Linux. Looks like I'm going to have to grin and bear it!
Regards
Alan
Rich
McClellan To: Mike Wyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<rich cc: Alan Moreland/UK/CSC@CSC,
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
@chemistry.uc Subject: Re: Hidden directories
sc.edu>
Sent by:
owner-autofs
10/01/02
18:36
Mike Wyer wrote:
[------ %< snip snip %< -------------]
>
> It's one of the more common complaints we get from new users:
> "/vol/bitbucket isn't there on my machine!"
> "Try cd'ing into it"
> "Oohhh."
>
> But people get used to it pretty quickly.
>
IMO, expecting users to navigate a file system in the dark is a **huge**
deficiency in usability. If it is technically possible to fix this
problem it should be done.
One way I've worked around this stupid behavior is to make a symbolic
link to a top level directory. For example, research directories are
auto mounted in /res. User's have a symbolic link from /res/<user> to
/home/<user>/research. When they do a directory listing in /home/<user>
they see the directory "research" along with everything else.
Application programs that are shared cluster wide are mounted in the
same way so that curious users, who have no idea about 'ypcat -k
auto.misc', can browse the filesystem and discover software.
my $0.02 worth,
Rich
