Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?

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Article #4479

#4479

From: Curt Welch
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 00:00

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lumpy <lumpy@cs.ucc.ie> wrote:
> Here's a few that I always wonder about:

> /etc = ETCetera ??
> /usr = USeR ??
> /var = VARious ??

I pronounce /usr as slash user, so seeing someone ask if it
means "user" just makes me chuckle.  Yes, it was where
the user home dirs were.  /usr/bin is where the "users"
programs were placed -- programs like dd which came
from a strange IBM JCL user who wanted to read/write
IBM tapes on the Unix box and clearly had no clue when
it came to understanding what a Unix command should
look like.  It's hard to believe we still have that strange
command around today!

/etc is of course etcetera.

I've never known for sure
what /var was - it came many many years later.  I've
always thought it meant variable i.e. the stuff that would
change from one system to the next on a network of
systems with shared filesystems.

As a quiz, how many people remember these directories,
what they were used for, and what their names mean.

/sys/dmr
/sys/ken

Curt Welch
http://CurtWelch.Com/

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From: curt@kcwc.com (Curt Welch)
Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?
Date: 1997/05/17
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