From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Aug 8 21:15:39 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 93CF437B400 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 21:15:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lakemtao02.cox.net (lakemtao02.cox.net [68.1.17.243]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D95AD43E6E for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 21:15:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tcornpropst@cox.net) Received: from cox.net ([68.98.132.213]) by lakemtao02.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with SMTP id <20020809041532.ELRY3097.lakemtao02.cox.net@cox.net> for ; Fri, 9 Aug 2002 00:15:32 -0400 Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 00:15:27 -0400 From: Trevor S.Cornpropst To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Links (was: Is simplicity despised? WAS: Message-Id: <20020809001527.3067afea.tcornpropst@cox.net> In-Reply-To: <20020808234634.GJ8561@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20020808141523.GT281@freepuppy.bellavista.cz> <200208081419.g78EJYO14151@clunix.cl.msu.edu> <20020808234634.GJ8561@wantadilla.lemis.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.7.8claws (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.6) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 09:16:34 +0930 > On Thursday, 8 August 2002 at 10:19:34 -0400, Jerry McAllister wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Because symlinks are wasteful and introduce problems. There are very > >>>> few reasons to ever symlink files in the same file system. > >>> > >>> Because symlinks make it abundantly clear what is linked to what. > >>> Hard links can lead to confusion. I suppose that's not a problem > >>> For most of you though. But, for example, if a person doesn't know > >>> which is linked to which, that person wouldn't know that more is > >>> really less. They might think less is really more (if they discovered > >>> it at all). To address the original question, I believe it is a matter of efficiency. Multiple 'copies of files' share the same inode. This implies they are using the same disk blocks. Fewer consumed disk blocks results in less file system consumption. The utilities that are hard linked are usually the same programs. Their execution is determined by the name from which they are called. This keeps the root file system smaller and makes management simpler. OTOH, this explains why I describe Linux as a train wreck. There is crap scattered all over the place ;-) Trevor To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message