Ubuntu should move all binaries to /usr/bin/

[Martin Pitt]

nick rundy [2011-11-01 15:01 -0400]:
> I came to ubuntu from Windows. And one thing Windows does well is make it easy to find an executable file (i.e., it's in C:\Program Files\)

In fact, Windows makes that really hard, as there is no standard
location for binaries. Each application ships its executables in its
own directory.

> Finding an executable file in Ubuntu is frustrating & lacks
> organization that makes sense to users.

I doubt that many users actually care, and those wo do can use
"which". Also. all binaries a user is actually concerned with are in
/usr/bin (i. e. the ones you'd call to open documents with).

> Here's a link to an article that talks about Fedora's idea:
> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Fedora-considers-moving-all-binaries-to-usr-bin-1369642.html?view=print 

That would mean that we need to drop the possibility to have /usr on a
separate partition/network file system, or make the initramfs
clever/complicated enough to actually wait for /usr to come up.

Also, the separation of /sbin and /usr/sbin is not just totally
random; for non-admin users it makes them not appear in tab completion
etc, which cleans up the command namespace a bit.

Martin

-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)