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Old 01-16-2008, 11:21 AM
Richard B. gilbert
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: why does /etc have links to executables?

unix_fan wrote:
> Why does solaris put links to lots of executables in /etc?
>
> That seems like the same kind of entrophy that I first
> observed in windows 95 - when I discovered that everything
> was under the windows directory.


Perhaps these executables originally lived in /etc and were later moved
to /usr/sbin. The links would preserve compatibility for older
applications.

Recall the tangled history of Unix: it was developed at Bell Labs in
order to support computer games on locally available hardware! It was
subsequently used for word processing; preparing patent applications.
Then a copy was given to the Computer Science Department at Berkeley.
It was never designed, it just grew.

If people had known then what they know now a lot of things might have
been done differently!


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