* [TUHS] history of sbin?
@ 2013-02-01 4:58 Norman Wilson
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2013-02-01 4:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
Armando Stettner:
> decvax!aps
Larry McVoy:
...!uwvax!lm
=====
Well, if we're going to play the one-up game:
research!norman
though for a few years before that it was
research!cithep!norman
Norman Wilson
(now) Toronto ON
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
2013-02-01 3:09 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2013-02-01 3:24 ` Armando Stettner
1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Armando Stettner @ 2013-02-01 3:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
I stand corrected: UNIX-wizards....
Thanks, Ron. :)
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Armando Stettner <aps at ieee.org>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] history of sbin?
> Date: January 31, 2013 9:02:06 PM EST
> To: "ramble1035 @dslextreme.com" <ramble1035 at dslextreme.com>
> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org
>
> This all reminds me of UNIX-gurus on Usenet.... :)
>
> decvax!aps
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: "ramble1035 @dslextreme.com" <ramble1035 at dslextreme.com>
>> Subject: Re: [TUHS] history of sbin?
>> Date: January 31, 2013 8:53:16 PM EST
>> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>>
>> Based on some vague recollections of early days at Sun... I seem to recall that one of the main differences between /bin and /sbin was that the /sbin binaries were all built with static libraries rather than shared. I heard /sbin described as "single-user bin"...
>>
>> I don't know when /sbin first appeared, though.
>>
>> -- Chris
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 06:06:15PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>> > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
>>
>> A few inaccuracies:
>>
>> When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
>> pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one,
>> which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why
>> the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories
>> under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those
>> new directories because their original disk was out of space.
>> When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated
>> all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the
>> space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
>>
>> Research Unix never had /sbin nor /home, and the tale of the third disk
>> doesn't ring any bells to me.
>>
>> 7th Edition has /usr/dmr and /usr/ken, not /home/dmr nor /usr/home/dmr :)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Warren
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
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* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
@ 2013-02-01 3:09 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 3:24 ` Armando Stettner
1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2013-02-01 3:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 09:02:06PM -0500, Armando Stettner wrote:
> This all reminds me of UNIX-gurus on Usenet.... :)
>
> decvax!aps
...!uwvax!lm
Though it took me a while, for a long time I was
...!uwvax!geowhiz!lm
Which was OK.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 2:03 ` [TUHS] 1974 CACM Paper, was " Warren Toomey
@ 2013-02-01 2:54 ` Warren Toomey
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Warren Toomey @ 2013-02-01 2:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
And finally (I'll shut up now), the 2nd Edition kernel had hard-coded
drivers for RF-11 and RK03 disks.
Cheers,
Warren
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 1:53 ` ramble1035 @dslextreme.com
2013-02-01 2:01 ` Larry McVoy
@ 2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
2013-02-01 3:09 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 3:24 ` Armando Stettner
1 sibling, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Armando Stettner @ 2013-02-01 2:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
This all reminds me of UNIX-gurus on Usenet.... :)
decvax!aps
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "ramble1035 @dslextreme.com" <ramble1035 at dslextreme.com>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] history of sbin?
> Date: January 31, 2013 8:53:16 PM EST
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>
> Based on some vague recollections of early days at Sun... I seem to recall that one of the main differences between /bin and /sbin was that the /sbin binaries were all built with static libraries rather than shared. I heard /sbin described as "single-user bin"...
>
> I don't know when /sbin first appeared, though.
>
> -- Chris
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 06:06:15PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
>
> A few inaccuracies:
>
> When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
> pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one,
> which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why
> the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories
> under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those
> new directories because their original disk was out of space.
> When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated
> all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the
> space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
>
> Research Unix never had /sbin nor /home, and the tale of the third disk
> doesn't ring any bells to me.
>
> 7th Edition has /usr/dmr and /usr/ken, not /home/dmr nor /usr/home/dmr :)
>
> Cheers,
> Warren
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
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* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 1:53 ` ramble1035 @dslextreme.com
@ 2013-02-01 2:01 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Larry McVoy @ 2013-02-01 2:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
Exactly. /sbin on sun was all the statically linked stuff that you could
count on when in single user mode trying to unscramble the mess that was
your disk. fsdb et al.
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 05:53:16PM -0800, ramble1035 @dslextreme.com wrote:
> Based on some vague recollections of early days at Sun... I seem to recall
> that one of the main differences between /bin and /sbin was that the /sbin
> binaries were all built with static libraries rather than shared. I heard
> /sbin described as "single-user bin"...
>
> I don't know when /sbin first appeared, though.
>
> -- Chris
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 06:06:15PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> > > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
> >
> > A few inaccuracies:
> >
> > When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
> > pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one,
> > which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why
> > the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories
> > under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those
> > new directories because their original disk was out of space.
> > When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated
> > all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the
> > space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
> >
> > Research Unix never had /sbin nor /home, and the tale of the third disk
> > doesn't ring any bells to me.
> >
> > 7th Edition has /usr/dmr and /usr/ken, not /home/dmr nor /usr/home/dmr :)
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Warren
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitkeeper.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 1:41 ` Warren Toomey
@ 2013-02-01 1:53 ` ramble1035 @dslextreme.com
2013-02-01 2:01 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: ramble1035 @dslextreme.com @ 2013-02-01 1:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
Based on some vague recollections of early days at Sun... I seem to recall
that one of the main differences between /bin and /sbin was that the /sbin
binaries were all built with static libraries rather than shared. I heard
/sbin described as "single-user bin"...
I don't know when /sbin first appeared, though.
-- Chris
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 06:06:15PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> > http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
>
> A few inaccuracies:
>
> When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
> pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one,
> which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why
> the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories
> under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those
> new directories because their original disk was out of space.
> When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated
> all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the
> space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
>
> Research Unix never had /sbin nor /home, and the tale of the third disk
> doesn't ring any bells to me.
>
> 7th Edition has /usr/dmr and /usr/ken, not /home/dmr nor /usr/home/dmr :)
>
> Cheers,
> Warren
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
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* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 0:06 Jeremy C. Reed
2013-02-01 1:28 ` Random832
@ 2013-02-01 1:41 ` Warren Toomey
2013-02-01 1:53 ` ramble1035 @dslextreme.com
2013-02-01 2:03 ` [TUHS] 1974 CACM Paper, was " Warren Toomey
2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Warren Toomey @ 2013-02-01 1:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 06:06:15PM -0600, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
A few inaccuracies:
When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk
pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one,
which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why
the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories
under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those
new directories because their original disk was out of space.
When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated
all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the
space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
Research Unix never had /sbin nor /home, and the tale of the third disk
doesn't ring any bells to me.
7th Edition has /usr/dmr and /usr/ken, not /home/dmr nor /usr/home/dmr :)
Cheers,
Warren
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 1:28 ` Random832
@ 2013-02-01 1:37 ` Warner Losh
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2013-02-01 1:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Jan 31, 2013, at 6:28 PM, Random832 wrote:
> On 1/31/2013 7:06 PM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>> I have heard the story a few times about sbin split is due to disk
>> space, such as told at
>> http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/
>> http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
>>
> Well, keeping in mind the stuff in /sbin used to be in /etc, in e.g. v7 - it's possible the real reason is simply they wanted binaries out of /etc and didn't want to put them in /bin where normal users might wonder "what is this?".
The split was for /usr and slash. Those things in / were local on small disks needed to boot the system just enough to mount a shared /usr remotely or to do some very limited recovery. This is why there's both /usr/bin and /bin.
It doesn't explain the /sbin and /bin split though.
I recall from SunOS 3.x documentation that I no longer have access to that the split was done to improve exec times for normal users. They didn't want the hash list to get too long with all the extra stuff in /sbin and /usr/sbin. the movement of the files from /etc also included movement to /libexec or /usr/libexec for many of the daemons that started out life in /etc. things like ifconfig moved to /sbin where people could more easily run them. Maybe the original /etc and /bin split was for PATH reasons?
Warner
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
2013-02-01 0:06 Jeremy C. Reed
@ 2013-02-01 1:28 ` Random832
2013-02-01 1:37 ` Warner Losh
2013-02-01 1:41 ` Warren Toomey
2013-02-01 2:03 ` [TUHS] 1974 CACM Paper, was " Warren Toomey
2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Random832 @ 2013-02-01 1:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
On 1/31/2013 7:06 PM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> I have heard the story a few times about sbin split is due to disk
> space, such as told at
> http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/
> http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
>
Well, keeping in mind the stuff in /sbin used to be in /etc, in e.g. v7
- it's possible the real reason is simply they wanted binaries out of
/etc and didn't want to put them in /bin where normal users might wonder
"what is this?".
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] history of sbin?
@ 2013-02-01 0:06 Jeremy C. Reed
2013-02-01 1:28 ` Random832
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Jeremy C. Reed @ 2013-02-01 0:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
I have heard the story a few times about sbin split is due to disk
space, such as told at
http://www.osnews.com/story/25556/Understanding_the_bin_sbin_usr_bin_usr_sbin_Split/
http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
But I don't see any mention of it in 32V and not in BSD until around
Net2 (like in 1991 src.README said ``... there has been a major
reorganization of the file system. (You may have seen similar
reorganizations on systems shipped by Sun Microsytems [sic] and Digital
Equipment Corporation, among others.) ... /sbin same as /bin, but
binaries for the root user''. The slides from Feb. 1988 for a BSD BOF at
USENIX mentioned this sbin reorganization.
Looking at "Unix Text Processing" (1987) and "Life with Unix" (1989) I
didn't see any use of sbin/. (I didn't look at my other old books.)
From searching old 1980 usenet archives I only saw a few mentions (like
/usr/brl/sbin/...).
When did some (non-BSD) systems ship and document /sbin, /usr/sbin?
Is the common story (liked linked above) the right story?
Jeremy C. Reed
echo uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/ofq-uvfgbel/ | \
tr "noqruvxzabcefgl" "abdehikmnoprsty"
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
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2013-02-01 4:58 [TUHS] history of sbin? Norman Wilson
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2013-02-01 0:06 Jeremy C. Reed
2013-02-01 1:28 ` Random832
2013-02-01 1:37 ` Warner Losh
2013-02-01 1:41 ` Warren Toomey
2013-02-01 1:53 ` ramble1035 @dslextreme.com
2013-02-01 2:01 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 2:02 ` Armando Stettner
2013-02-01 3:09 ` Larry McVoy
2013-02-01 3:24 ` Armando Stettner
2013-02-01 2:03 ` [TUHS] 1974 CACM Paper, was " Warren Toomey
2013-02-01 2:54 ` [TUHS] " Warren Toomey
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