On Saturday 02 February 2002 01:26, you wrote: Shanon,
Here is a link which you may find useful. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ The standard that defines questions of the type you posed is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. The latest revision of this standard is 2.2; they are working on version 2.3. To nutshell these questions for you, the /opt directory is for software packages that might clump all their files together in one location (configuration, binary, whatnot), in other words, software packages that do not follow the normal system of Linux installation. The definition of normal is when you have config files in the /etc dir, binary files in the /usr/bin dir, and so on. Software of the "/opt" type is (more or less) uses the same organizational style as application software packages that are installed in Windows.. i.e, alot of stuff clumped into one dir (under "program files"). A seperate location had to be defined for this style of application software installation, as it conflicts with the standardized native Linux package installation scheme. This interpretation of course is subject perhaps to a somewhat wider scope, as the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard can be interpreted somewhat loosely under some circumstances. Example: Even though the FHS version 2.2 specifies that all /opt related files need to be contained to /etc/opt (configuration), /opt (binary and all other needed application files), and /var/opt (everything not contained under the other two categories), there are applications that install everything that's needed into an /opt subdirectory and then ignore the other two directories. This isn't unusual. It's entirely likely that if you never move away from Mandrake RPM's you will never see a usage of the /opt directory. The /initrd directory is not mentioned in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard version 2.2. I suspect that this is either a feature of the upcoming FHS version 2.3 or that it may be vendor specific (Mandrake). In either case, it is definitely related to the initrd filesystem, which is a compressed filesystem that the kernel loads BEFORE it mounts the primary root filesystem on the hard drive. The purpose of this is to load drivers and device files needed for basic system operation, i.e., complete hard drive access, for one example. > Hello all, > > I am currently going through my file system in > order to learn more about linux and I have come across > these two directories that are empty. > > /opt > > /initrd > > I was wondering if someone could tell me what they are > for and if it will break anything if I remove them. > > Thanks > > Shanon > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Everything you'll ever need on one web page > from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts > http://uk.my.yahoo.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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