From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lee Sau Dan Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Software/HD ecology Date: 16 Dec 2002 17:04:24 +0100 Organization: Rechenzentrum der Universitaet Freiburg, Germany Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <041220020952400758%ajanta@no.spam> <56cfb0e3.0212041458.5eab182a@posting.google.com> <061220020416350201%ajanta@no.spam> <071220021155280606%ajanta@no.spam> <5ld6obj8il.fsf@rum.cs.yale.edu> <091220021652087216%ajanta@no.spam> <111220021101520860%ajanta@no.spam> <111220021253524057%ajanta@no.spam> <5l65u0i8zj.fsf@rum.cs.yale.edu> <111220022053507599%ajanta@no.spam> <87u1hjdwta.fsf@hurd.crasseux.com> <121220021419243187%anil@null.invalid> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=cn-big5 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1040060928 25655 80.91.224.249 (16 Dec 2002 17:48:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 17:48:48 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18NzMD-0006fX-00 for ; Mon, 16 Dec 2002 18:48:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18NzJr-0000N3-0A for gnu-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 16 Dec 2002 12:46:20 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.news.nacamar.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-freiburg.de!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.text.tex,gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 68 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: camaro.informatik.uni-freiburg.de User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu comp.sys.mac.apps:349043 gnu.emacs.help:108179 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:4707 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:4707 >>>>> "Anil" == Anil writes: Anil> Since unix routinely keeps a system-wide log on every file, Since when does Unices do that? Can you tell me the name of this log file? Anil> Let us say a slightly enhanced version of "ls" could tell Anil> you not only that a file is owned by root, wheel, etc., but Anil> also "belongs" to the System or a user or a package like TeX Anil> or Emacs-29.9, and maybe even its type within that package Anil> (src, doc, bin...). This requires one or two more file Anil> attributes, but then you could check on an individual file Anil> with "ls" or list all files belonging to a package with Anil> "find". 'man rpm', if you're on a RedHat or SuSE system. Anil> I think unix was conceptualized for small systems and Anil> programs, where a user might know every file, where it came Anil> from, what it does. Wrong. Unix has been designed to be a multi-concurrent-user system since 3 decades ago. Unix systems used to be time-shared among hundreds (in some cases thousands) of concurrent users. Normally, the end users only know about a few subtree of the whole directory tree, and that's enough for his work. Anil> Either you wrote it yourself or copied it from a Anil> friend. Those times are gone. They've gone long ago. Anil> We have hundreds of thousands of files, Unix passed this point decades ago. Anil> know nothing about them, and routinely install packages that Anil> bring thousands of files. The culture and the tools have not Anil> evolved to deal with this reality and perhaps need to. That why we hav package management tools, like RPM on RedHat and SuSE. Anil> Shouldn't you be able to know just what a particular file Anil> named "dtabttf" doing on your system? Unix programmers would have used a more descriptive filenames. Anil> Similarly, while I am glad to know a files's relationship to Anil> "wheel", it would also be useful to know it belongs to emacs Anil> or TeX. rpm -qf /etc/ntpd.conf -- Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´°(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ) E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee