Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
Originally posted by: nweaver
Filesystems/drive mounting are one thing that actually made SENSE. Your file tree should not be dictated by physical/logical volumes. It should be the tree, and your drives conform around it. I really love the way Linux does mounting, and the tree in general. Adding disks because one is full is easier too. With windows, it's basiclly impossible, where as in linux, you add it, format, copy the files and add a mount point to fstab. Reboot, and that drive is now running.
That's one thing that I haven't been able to grasp. Granted, I haven't used Linux much and it's still a work in progress -- but, the whole filesystem/mounting thing seems so illogical to me at this point.
I know it's because Linux is still overwhelming at this point and Windows/DOS has been "IT" for so long. I'm not knocking the Linux system at all....I'm just haven't caught on yet.
Actually Linux is using the Unix/BSD method of mounting volumes. Albeit through a different configuration file but the idea is more or less the same. Windows is the odd ball in the way you access drives, not the other way around. Windows has a larger market share so people may view the lettered approach as the defacto method, but it's not how (post mainframe) volumes are managed.
If you look at the progress with Microsofts approach to volume management, you'll see they are edging much closer to a true unix styled concept. The major differences are the 300+ permission flags as opposed to 3(in the traditional sense).
Take this example. You have a Linux system. You have the default install directory tree set up. You are User A, and your home directory is "/home/userA". One day you hit your disk space limit. Prior to Windows 2000, in the windows world it meant moving your "C:\windows\user and settings\userA" (or whatever it was called before) to another area or buying a new disk.
In the Linux world, you could take a spare partition and mount it under "/home/userA" as say "home/userA/newPartition". The new partition would seamlessly give you space underneth your existing home directory without touching your existing data. You could than move your files do to "newPartition" and get back in business.
It's also flexible in the notion that for specific applications, say Apache, you could mount multiple drives under the same directory for a nice clean directory tree. IE, Apache is installed to "/usr/local/apache". The logs are in "/usr/local/apache/log". Along with served pages are in "/usr/local/apache/frontPage". Apache, log, and frontPage can all be three seperate partitions, though it doesn't require the usage of three letters to accomplish this.
What the administrator sees is much simpler than a windows setup. In windows you would be required to have something like Apache installed to C:\Program Files\Apache, the logs in D:\Program Files\Apache\Logs, and the Front page in E:\Program Files\Apache\Front Page. That is if you wanted to split them across three partitions, perhaps for backend storage purposes.
The Unix style approach is much more sane, once you start to manipulate partitions and try to bring them into a streamlined logic view.
Why would you want to flip back and forth between disks to view information related to the same program?
Edit: Forgot to mention my biggest hurdles where just the differences in the way things are accomplished from the OSes. Once you learn the basics they are both fairly easy to use. Both have their pros and cons, and of course the oddities that you run into. Though if you don't mind spending a little time learing to begin with, and the applications you desire are on the OSS side it's well worth it in the long run. It may not always be the best solution(think recently release games). Though it is a very viable alternative, in most respects.
Early on, printers (figuring out the compatible drivers, same as on windows really). Ati video drivers. Compiling the kernel was a little daunting, but they've streamlined the process for the most part.
For me it's just nice to know how an OS works, as you can delve into the inner workings. Also if you load a service, or driver you don't have to reboot and hope it works...
Facebook
Twitter