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[return to "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"]
1. M95D+qx[view] [source] 2026-01-04 17:18:58
>>csmant+(OP)
Sometime around 2000 someone decided that /bin and /sbin isn't enough to boot and mount the rest of the system, so they added further complexity: an initrd/initramfs that does the basic job of /bin and /sbin. They had to complicate the kernel build process, the kernel update, the bootloader, the kernel command line and for what? Just because they didn't want the kernel to have the storage drivers built-in?

So the /bin /sbin became redundant.

Sometime around 2020 someone observed that no current Linux can boot without /usr anyway. So what did they do? Move everything from /usr to / and drop the whole /usr legacy? Noooo, that would be too simple. Move / to /usr. And because that is still too simple, also move /bin, /sbin and /usr/sbin to /usr/bin, and then keep symlinks at the old locations because who's gonna fix hardcoded paths in 99% of all Linux apps anyway??

Oh, how I wish I was born in the '60s, when the world was still sane.

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2. mjg59+FK[view] [source] 2026-01-04 18:36:43
>>M95D+qx
/ has to be writeable (or have separate writeable mounts under it), /usr doesn't. The reasons for unifying under /usr are clearly documented and make sense and it's incredibly tedious seeing people complain about it without putting any effort into understanding it.
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3. M95D+kS[view] [source] 2026-01-04 19:27:49
>>mjg59+FK
Documented where?
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4. mjg59+FZ[view] [source] 2026-01-04 20:17:12
>>M95D+kS
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseFor..., for example
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