kramlq wrote:
- Having root's home directory as "/". As you use editors, and in some cases install applications (e.g. adobe), you tend
to get silly .<something> file and log files left in "/". Why not use "/root"?
- Why are home directories in /usr/people as a default - it makes things like like a "find /usr -name <something>" search through even more directories and files than it should have to, compared with a "/home" layout (e.g. when searching to locate a binary or library that you have forgotten the path to).
Perhaps I got too used to Linux... but these are some places where I think Linux makes more sense than IRIX.
Will anything break by changing root's homedir to "/root", or users to use "/home"?
Root's home in "/" and user's home directories in /usr/nnn are (new-)old-UNIX-standard ['80s]. Pretty much every UNIX will use some variant of this until the mid '90s and the rise of GNU (with the exception of Sun, since they were so network/nfs based home directories are/were in /export/home. Root's home is still / in SunOS4 and Solaris, though).
Having a separate home for root does keep things looking nice, I'll admit, but you really shouldn't be doing that much as root anyway. That said, between basic administration, software install, and patches I build up a fair number of files owned by root.
There shouldn't be an issue with changing root's home, just make sure it's on the root filesystem just in case.
The bigger issue with IRIX is that in the mid '90s SGI broke with UNIX tradition and put required binaries in the /usr tree. Granted, disks are big enough to where it isn't that big of an issue, but it still was bad form.
...None of the cross-compilings that I've attempted worked enough successfully to justify the amount of extra headaches/time of doing the things in such way.
(single-CM)
