Ubuntu 9 released!

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Linux
Posted on Friday 1 May 2009

Finally the new version of an awesome operating system released,

I just installed it on my VirtualBox (Both Kubuntu and Ubuntu) , fast and solid. Kubuntu because of KDE 4 still has various issues, as i said before KDE 4 is my favorite desktop so i won't move my workstation to Linux until it becomes stable :).

Ubuntu proved once again that it's one of the best Linux distributions , they still have a long way ahead but i'm sure Mark Shuttleworth won't stop until he either sell Ubuntu or make it a serious Windows competitor!

One of the things that annoys me is Linux file system hierarchy  , why it's still complicated after all this years? why they still use short names when Linux naively supports symbolic links ages ago and it could be simplified easily.

What's the problem? well you can't figure out what's what just by looking at it even if you're a developer! honestly it seems that Microsoft guys got it right this time. I don't like the idea of using partitions as base path in Windows!! because sometimes removing or adding new partitions changes the path. But windows file system structure is really  more understandable than Linux.

I may do something about it one day, hopefully part of it can be simplified only by using symbolic links :)

Update : There are various Linux distributions avaialbe like GoboLinux - the alternative Linux distribution that address this issue. So we might see some changes in the next few years.

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Comments

Farhadi's picture

I can't agree with you on

Submitted by Farhadi (not verified) on Thu, 2009-12-10 13:35.

I can't agree with you on Linux folder structure. I think directory structure in Linux is much better than Windows.
If we are talking about structure I'd say the complication is because of the complicated nature of an OS and it can't be simplified anymore. And by the way Linux has a policy to organize all the system resources and configurations in the file structure. I mean, everything is based on files (even devices and processes) and In my opinion it's very logical and understandable.

But if we are talking about the names of files and folders, from the point of view of either a developer or a system administrator, its much easier to work with shorter file names rather than working with long capitalized space-contained names.

And from the perspective of an ordinary user, there is no need to know anything about underlying file system.

admin's picture

I'm not saying that Window's

Submitted by admin on Thu, 2009-12-10 20:51.

I'm not saying that Window's file system hierarchy is perfect, it also has many disadvantages and issues comparing to Linux. But there is one thing i like about it , which is its simplicity for end users.
We (Developers, Administrators) need the end users' attention , To sell our products/services , get more feedback , get better hardware support (Drivers) from manufactures , have more professional softwares available for Linux , etc.
There have been many big changes since the last 5 years toward this goal by many different distributions / communities like Ubuntu, SUSE,Gnome, KDE,Kernel developer team, Linux Artists, etc and the result was really stunning. Few years ago we couldn't even install Linux on many Laptops without hacking and there was only one Graphical installer available for Linux!.

This one is just another big step like the others in my opinion, and there is already a distribution called GoboLinux for addressing this issue which you might like to have a look at their site.

Thanks for your comment :)