Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!philmtl!atha!lyndon From: lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Lyndon Nerenberg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix Subject: Re: /bin/e, /bin/ed, /bin/red Summary: the *real reason :-) Message-ID: <1358@atha.AthabascaU.CA> Date: 3 Jan 90 07:16:27 GMT References: Distribution: comp Organization: Athabasca University Lines: 31 >/bin/e, /bin/ed and /bin/red are all the same. I know >that they're not very big. >But, they are on the root (small) file system. This seems bad. >How about it, Ultrix team? Others have already pointed out that the three files are actually one through the magic of links, etc., however nobody answered the question :-) The reason /bin/ed is on the root filesystem is to allow system administrators with fat fingers and leaking cranial cavaties to repair broken files (such as /etc/rc*, /etc/fstab, ...) that prevent machines from booting properly. If ed were in /usr, and /usr wasn't mounted, and /etc/fstab was broken, things would get ugly. [ You could use cat. I prefer /bin/emacs :-) ] [[ I will NOT tell you how MY decade started. Suffice to say I like /bin/ed right where it is! ]] [[[ I will also NOT flame about how default sizes for root filesystems are totally silly. Blame that one on Berkeley, I guess. If there was one feature I wished DEC and Sun hadn't picked up, though ... ]]] -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University {alberta,decwrl}!atha!lyndon || lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA UREP: Peru in disguise?