Timeline for Why do /usr and /tmp directories for Linux miss vowels in their spellings?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
9 events
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| Jan 18, 2019 at 11:21 | comment | added | Iain Collins | Just to add to this, there were/are limits on total length of a path in Unix, which I ran into a few times over the years, so that's a factor too. I agree it was almost certainly driven mostly by brevity in typing and space saving consideration though. | |
| Mar 7, 2011 at 17:21 | comment | added | BillThor | Most file systems store the file in blocks. Sizes range from 512 bytes on up in powers of 2. Available sized depend on the file system. Some filesystems will store the tail (partially filled last block) in the inode stucture. Occupied space may be more closely related to the number of bytes, than is found with systems that only use block level storage. | |
| Mar 7, 2011 at 8:38 | comment | added | geekosaur | Modern Unix directories have variable-length entries. Back in Research Unix, a directory entry was a fixed 16 bytes: 14 for the filename, 2 for the inode number. And it may have been smaller when /usr etc. were canonized. | |
| Mar 7, 2011 at 2:20 | comment | added | xenoterracide | and it would have been more annoying to type. "temporary vs tmp" ugh... why would anyone want them longer? | |
| Mar 7, 2011 at 1:05 | comment | added | user unknown |
I have never written or inspected a filesystem in depth, but does the name of a file/directory in the filesystem occupy more or less space, depending on 1 character? The files themselves always occupy a multiple of some size - today 4k. So most files which contain a path to /usr or /tmp will not effectively get smaller or bigger, depending on a single e. Well - sometimes they will, and then they grow for a whole blocksize, but rarely. And in RAM? I don't know.
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| Mar 6, 2011 at 16:20 | history | edited | BillThor | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
Add some specs on PDP-7; added 6 characters in body
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| Mar 6, 2011 at 13:47 | comment | added | user591 | @user unknown: Then you are young and never had to worry about memory or disk space. My first computer is 30 years old now - marvel at the specs. | |
| Mar 6, 2011 at 10:47 | comment | added | user unknown | I don't buy mmory nd dsk spc, but slow tltyps. As long s you cn dcphr th cronyms - why not? | |
| Mar 6, 2011 at 8:10 | history | answered | BillThor | CC BY-SA 2.5 |