On Tue, 05 Jan 2016 18:06:08 +0000, Rainer Weikusat wrote:
> Didier Kryn <kryn@???> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> I've read, from a guy who followed the story,that it was originally
>>>> split because the first disk was too
>>>> small.
>
> [...]
>
>> Good find Rainer. But I don't fully understand what you mean by:
>>> Keep the stuff needed by everyone (and the swap space) on the fast disk
>>> and use the slower one for 'individual users files'.
>>
>> Do you mean the applications in /usr/bin aren't used by everyone?
>> Or they don't deserve to be launched quickly?
>
> The main use of the original /usr was "store user home directories", ie,
> files users were working with, including "less universally useful
> programs".
>
[...]
> There's also a "Notes for a UNIX talk ca 1972". Unfortunately, I don't
> have a local copy of that, it's also not part of Landley's "sources" and
> what used to be "Dennis Ritchie's homepage" is - at best -
> intermittently accessible nowadays but I this 'UNIX(*) talk' refers to
> the 11/45 installations and talks about "a fast, fixed-head system disk"
> and a "large, slower, moving head disk [mounted at /usr]"
>
> where all the users' files are kept
You have a good memory. Only for the record, the exact quote reads:
It is also possible for the directory hierarchy to be split
across several devices. Thus the system can store a directory,
and all [files] and directories lower than it in the hierarchy,
on a device other than the one on which the root is stored.
In particular, in our own version of the system, there is a
directory "/usr" which contains all user's directories, and
which is stored on a relatively large, but slow moving head disk,
while the othe files are on the fast but small fixed-head disk.
[Ref:
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/notes.html]
The DMR page seems to be fairly stable, since he returned from main().
[...]
> [*] 'Typing patent applications' using ed and nroff, doubtlessly happy
> with how user-friendly this system was when compared to a
> typewriter. Is is clerks or programmers who degenerated so much
> since then? :->>
Now, /that/ made my day, and in more than one way! :)