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GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy
It is a well-known fact that of the 300 or so Linux distributions in existence today, the vast majority are nothing but modified versions of one of the major ones. Some of them might offer a few interesting ideas or several user-friendly tweaks, but the underlying system usually differs very little from its immediate parent. That's not to say that there is no innovation among the smaller distributions. Unfortunately, most of them are limited to relatively simple enhancements, rather than radical ideas. One exception is GoboLinux. This comparatively little-known project is attempting to redefine the entire UNIX file system and come up with a unique and more logical structure of directories and files.More logical? Well, even some seasoned UNIX system administrators will probably agree that the UNIX file system, developed in late sixties, is far from ideal. While it is not particularly difficult to learn which files belong to /usr, which should go into /var and what to store in /etc, isn't there a more intuitive way of placing files into directories? Especially in times when many people are trying to push Linux into the mainstream as a viable alternative to other, more user-friendly operating systems?
It turns out that the GoboLinux project has been doing exactly that - reorganizing the directories and files into a new structure. It all started with one of the developers working on a system where he did not have superuser privileges, but still needed to compile programs. To avoid difficulties when upgrading, he placed individual programs into their own directories and named them according to the relevant program names, e.g. ~/Programs/AfterStep. Other parts of the programs went into similarly identified directories, such as ~/Libraries, ~/Headers, etc. Custom scripts for automated compilation of these programs and correct placing of individual components were also developed.
After a hard disk crash, the developer decided to rebuild his entire system with this new file system hierarchy. Under GoboLinux, there are 6 directories below the root file system; these are /Depot, /Mount, /System, /Files, /Programs and /Users. All executable files are stored under /Programs, which has a structure of /Programs/XFree86/4.3/. This makes it easy to maintain multiple versions of an application without having to resort to application renaming (e.g. gcc and gcc3). The /Programs directory also stores system-wide settings, so the XFree86 configuration file can be found in /Programs/XFree86/Settings/X11/. The /Users directory is roughly equivalent to /home on "normal" Linux system, while /Depot is a general place to store files by all users. The /Files directory contains plugins, fonts, documentation and other non-executable files.
The purpose of the /System directory is more complex. It contains symbolic links to all executable files, libraries, headers, etc on the system and these are also mapped to the traditional location, such as /bin, /usr/bin, etc. Yes, the system does include these directories - for legacy reasons and for those troublesome applications where directory paths are hard-coded into the source code. However, these legacy directories are not visible to users, thanks to a GoboHide kernel patch, which is able to hide certain directories, both from the command line and from file managers.
How does one go about installing applications on GoboLinux? These tasks have been automated by a collection of scripts. There are scripts for compiling programs, scripts for creating GoboLinux packages from source code, and scripts for installation. They have command line options to handle special situations, but in most cases they are very simple to use. The scripts also include simple dependency checking. As for the system boot, rather than using one of the common boot models (System V or BSD), the GoboLinux developers have written their own set of boot scripts - simple sequences of executable commands, each with a message string.
GoboLinux, the core of which is developed by Hisham Muhammad and Andre Detsch (as well as a number of contributors), is an interesting distribution to play with. The bootable ISO image serves as a live CD with some basic hardware auto-detection and KDE as the default desktop environment. Once booted, a graphical (as well as a text-based) GoboLinux installer is provided for those who would like to give it a partition on the hard disk. The latest version is 010 (the versioning scheme follows octal numbering), released earlier this month, and this is available for free download from GoboLinux mirror sites. The developers pride themselves on having created a highly unusual, yet usable Linux system and they are keen to offer support via their fairly busy mailing lists.
It is highly unlikely that GoboLinux will succeed in relegating the traditional UNIX file system hierarchy into the annals of history and replacing it with a more intuitive one. But as a hobby distribution, it is certainly a lot of fun.
Distribution News
Conectiva Linux 10 Technology Preview 2
The second preview release of Conectiva Linux 10 is now available. It features a 2.6.1 kernel, the KDE 3.2 release candidate, and other bleeding-edge stuff; see the release notes for details on what is in this release, or this page for information on the preview itself.Debian GNU/Linux
The Debian Weekly News for January 20, 2004 is out. This week's issue looks at Debian in Slashdot and Symlink, a new developer survey, updating web site translations, Debian at LinuxWorld Expo New York, and much more.The debian-installer team has announced the second beta release of the Debian Sarge installer for the i386, PowerPC, and ia64 architectures.
The Debian Bug Tracking System has moved to a new computer. Most people won't notice much of a difference, at least for now. Click here for more details.
DebianPlanet has some helpful pointers for running IPv6 in Debian.
Fedora Core
A test release of Fedora Core 1 for AMD64 is now available for download and may be at a mirror near you. The ISOs are also up and available at: bit torrent.The third Fedora News Updates issue is out, with information on Fedora at LinuxWorld, the first AMD64 release, Fedora kernel information, and more.
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter - Volume 3, Issue 3
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of January 19, 2004 is out. This week: Gentoo Linux is a finalist for LinuxWorld Expo's "Best Open Source Project"; the Gentoo Linux Desktop Project has new co-leaders; and more.Mandrake Linux
The January 16 issue of the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter is available; it looks at the availability of the MandrakeMove download edition, the business case of the week, and more.Here are some bug fix advisories for Mandrake Linux 9.2:
- The krozat screensaver in Mandrake
Linux 9.1 and 9.2 has a memory leak.
- The kwin4 application in kdegames
crashes on startup.
- A problem with qt3 causes improper
behavior when using accelerator keys in KDE applications such as
Konqueror, KMail, and others.
- This drakxtools update fixes a problem with sagem modems.
Lycoris and Bitstream Bring High-Quality Fonts to Linux
Lycoris and Bitstream have announced that Lycoris has licensed 40 high-quality Bitstream fonts for the Lycoris ProductivityPak.Slackware Linux
Slackware has upgraded alsa, kde (includes a security fix), inn, gnome, gimp, mozilla, sendmail and python this week according to the slackware-current changelog.Trustix Secure Linux
Trustix has bug fixes available for TSL 2.0:- The samba library libnss_wins does
not get built.
- This update provides minor cleanup of the kernel source package.
Minor distribution updates
Astaro Security Linux
Astaro Security Linux has released v4.019 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: This Up2Date fixes a config update bug for HA Systems."
Blue Cat Embedded Linux
LynuxWorks has released Blue Cat Embedded Linux 5.0, which features a 2.6 Linux kernel.BRaiLleSPEAK
BRaiLleSPEAK has released 07-10-2003 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This version is no longer Slack-based but Debian-based."
Buffalo Linux
Buffalo Linux has released v1.1.1 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: The main new features are the 2.6.1 kernel, a 'newkernel' GUI rebuild feature, and a new modutils 3.0.0 (with a Buffalo wrapper for switching back to the old version if needed). All other packages are the same as 1.1.0. There are many minor bugfixes and a few new features, such as a 'RUN Program' option on the main menu which supports adding desktop icons and Programs entries for both Linux and MS Windows programs."
Coyote Linux
Coyote Linux has released v2.06 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: PPP dialup script fixes were made. The SSH daemon was updated to dropbear .40. The bpalogin utility was recompiled to make it work properly with the uclibc libraries used by Coyote."
Damn Small Linux
Damn Small Linux has released v0.5.3.1 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: This version features gPhone, a fix for the Monkey Web server, replacement of the NES game "BattleTank 2000" with "Munchie Attack", and a new Fluxbox theme."
Feather Linux
Feather Linux has released v0.3.3 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: SciTE has been fixed. Firebird and OpenOffice install scripts have been added. mount.app, portmap and nfs-common, and chntpw have been added. The default Fluxbox theme has been changed. Sylpheed has been updated to 0.9.8a. A proxy configuration option has been added to setup. A script to save the configuration to a floppy has been added."
Gentoo For Zaurus
Gentoo For Zaurus has released v0.2.1 with minor bugfixes. "Changes: More "real" packages instead of the busybox ones. bison, procps, patch, bash, grep, and coreutils have been merged into the main system. The system should compile more packages without errors or warnings."
Gibraltar
Gibraltar has released v1.2 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: This release enhances the Web interface usability, making it easier to use and in some places speeding up administration tasks."
LEAF
LEAF (Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall) has released Bering-uClibc 2.1rc1 with major security fixes. "Changes: This is the first version based on Linux 2.4.24. Dropbear has been upgraded to 0.40 and shorewall to version 1.4.9."
Recovery Is Possible! (RIP)
RIP has released v7.0 with minor feature enhancements. "Changes: The kernel and some of the software was updated."
slimlinux
slimlinux has released v0.4.0 with major feature enhancements. "Changes: This release has a smaller distribution size (1.2 MB), kernel 2.2.19, BusyBox 0.60.5, "the one true" awk, and retawq 0.2.1 instead of Links. Both floppy and hard disk versions are available. All Linux utilities build with gcc and uClibc."
Distribution reviews
Spawn of Debian faceoff: MEPIS Linux (NewsForge)
NewsForge continues the 'Spawn of Debian faceoff' with a review of MEPIS Linux. "The default MEPIS desktop is a clean, well-lighted place. Nearly a dozen desktop icons are arranged in two columns on the left hand side of the screen. Along the bottom, the KDE task bar shows the status of your keyboard LEDs, the date and time, and half a dozen icons of its own."
Spawn of Debian faceoff: Xandros 2.0 (NewsForge)
NewsForge reviews Xandros 2.0. "There is an interesting array of applications included by the default installation available via the menu launcher. Accessories include both a personal time tracker and pop-up notes. There is a complete CrossOver menu to allow you to run MS Office, Adobe Photoshop, and other Windows applications on your Xandros box. Multimedia includes Audio Builder, which is actually ARTS, the Real Time Synthesizer. OpenOffice.org is also present. The only thing that surprised me was that the GIMP was not present in the default installation. But given the ease of adding applications via Xandros Networks, that's really not a big deal."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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