Robert Moskowitz rgm@htt-consult.com wrote:
But HIDDEN???
Configuration files and directories in UNIX are almost _always_ "dot files." Files that begin with a dot are not shown if you do a list subdirectory (ls) without the all (-a) option.
The concept is that you might only want to show the subdirectories _you_ created, not where some program stored its configuration files. You want those out-of-the-way.
In fact, the reference "hidden" is a more recent Window'ism! It's how the files are show in Samba, because Windows provides a "hidden" attribute. So that's how they show up.
Certain versions of the Windows Explorer will _not_ even let you create a file or directory that begins with a dot. That's because it believes it is an "extension" and not a file.
Again, I said it before and I will say it again, UNIX and Windows are _radically_different_ beasts in many areas! When you say things like "But HIDDEN???" many of us UNIX users roll our eyes. Not because we think you are stupid or anything, but because you have been "programmed" that things are how they are in the Windows world.
I have always kept my data organized by identity and have NEVER put anything in M$s pet directories.
That's because Microsoft's profile approaches are, and have _always_ been, _severely_broken_! The infighting and general and quite gross ignorance of the NT team by the single/home-user Chicago (95/98) team resulted in this.
But in the UNIX world, the use of the user's home directory -- the $HOME variable or commonly tilde (~) or tilde-user (~user) is pretty much an _absolute_.
E.g., I put the NFS export /export/engr/bjsmith in an Automounter map that is shared by an NIS or Netscape Directory Server (LDAP) and it gets mounted to /home/engr/bjsmith on _every_ single workstation I log into. I now have _all_ of my configuration _everywhere_ I go. I might consider AFS or DFS and use caching as well (long, long story).
Microsoft has tried to nail down roaming profiles for 12+ years, and they still haven't perfected it. They've tried to cache it local, or cache portions of it. My personal favorite was, and will continue to be, the first time MS Internet Explorer was _forced_ into Windows NT 4.0. I'd have roaming profiles of 1+GB and it didn't matter how many times I ran the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) tools to move the temporary files outside of a user's roaming profile, it would somehow get "reset" back in it.
After I install an app, I change its data directory
settings.
Been doing this since QUARTERDECK on 286s.
In UNIX, you want to _avoid_ doing that. Why? Because in the UNIX world -- _everyone_ knows that user settings go in the user's home directory. Every single application assumes it _only_ has write access to the user's home directory and _no_ where else (except maybe /tmp).
That's something Microsoft itself still can't get their own application division to do -- although the "\My Documents and Settings" has finally caught on well enough. But mounting that across a network is still not as "absolute" as UNIX's home directory.
And I could mount shares for specific user info from other systems.
Yes.
You left out OS/2 there (I gained the dubious title of one of the 5 junior blue ninjas.
No I didn't. I just didn't want to go into it (although I did on the Citrix follow-up).**
386Enhanced mode of "Chicago" (yes, 95/98/Me still use it) is basically a bastardization of OS/2 running atop of Real Mode DOS.
NT is a superset of OS/2, with some really stupid approaches (like the GDI root of any WinForm application, including the NT DOS Virtual Machine, NTVDM, which ran the DOS/DPMI as well as the Win32 console).
anyone here know who the blue ninja on compuserve was?). I remember when Culter was hired away from DEC. To make a 'real' file system.
Sigh. I really don't want to get in these pissing contest. I know all about OS/2 and VMS and the Digital-Microsoft alliance (Digital _always_ made the _only_ quality NT applications), etc...
[ <resume=ON>I spent my college days as not only as the sole Internet hostmaster/postmaster of a 15,000 employee consulting engineering firm, but also it's sole OS/2 expert. I also had IBM and Digital MIPS systems running AIX and Ultra and, later, Digital Alpha 21064[A] and 21164 running Windows NT, Digital UNIX, OpenVMS and, of course, Linux.</resume> ]