09/06/06, Kyrre Nygard <kyrreny (AT) broadpark (DOT) nowrote:
Hello!
Just a wild thought here
After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
hierarchy, from the root and up. This is just a radical thought,
not yet an idea even -- but if somebody would be willing to think
with me -- maybe we could make a big change.
Can you elaborate? I don't really understand.
MC

Hello!

Just a wild thought here

After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
hierarchy, from the root and up. This is just a radical thought,
not yet an idea even -- but if somebody would be willing to think
with me -- maybe we could make a big change.

All the best,
Kyrre

6/9/06, Kyrre Nygard <kyrreny (AT) broadpark (DOT) nowrote:
Hello!

Just a wild thought here

After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
hierarchy, from the root and up. This is just a radical thought,
not yet an idea even -- but if somebody would be willing to think
with me -- maybe we could make a big change.

All the best,
Kyrre

I have been thinking the same for a while now and I'd be interested in
discussing it further. I don't think the proper thing to do is to
trash FFS though, like Apple decided to do. I was thinking, perhaps a
manager that tags files by hardlinking them into different folders (is
it possible to hardlink directories too?).

Let's discuss this offlist and invite anyone else who's interested too.
-Nick

mal content wrote Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 07:27:38PM +0100:
09/06/06, Kyrre Nygard <kyrreny (AT) broadpark (DOT) nowrote:

>After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
>with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
>frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
>sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
>if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
>hierarchy, from the root and up.

First point: Whatever might result would not be UNIX any more.
Try `man 2 mkdir | grep PSIX`.

More importantly, dirs form a hierarchy, tags don't.
Think about $HME, $PATH and directory permissions.
Try `man mount | grep nosuid`. Try `man 8 chroot`. Try

>This is just a radical thought, not yet an idea even --
>but if somebody would be willing to think
>with me -- maybe we could make a big change.

Possibly, but this appears to be wildly off topic on this list.

Can you elaborate? I don't really understand.

http://del.icio.us/help/tags

11/06/06, Ingo Schwarze <schwarze (AT) usta (DOT) dewrote:

http://del.icio.us/help/tags

Seems to me that this would just be a simple manager interface
built over the existing filesystem. No need to change the filesystem,
just maintain a database of pointers to files using tags as search
keys.

MC

11/06/06, Ingo Schwarze <schwarze (AT) usta (DOT) dewrote:
mal content wrote on Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 07:55:30PM +0100:
11/06/06, Ingo Schwarze <schwarze (AT) usta (DOT) dewrote:
>
>http://del.icio.us/help/tags
>
Seems to me that this would just be a simple manager interface
built over the existing filesystem. No need to change the filesystem,
just maintain a database of pointers to files using tags as search
keys.

About any bloody app out there in userland relies on open(2), rename(2),
unlink(2) and friends. Thus, either tamper with syscall stubs in libc
- see / for details - or rewrite
userland or be content with a locate(1) quality database. Not
exactly what i might call "just" and "simple".

Regarding myself, _I_ do not feel fit to build a new world right
now. At the very least, i think i ought to spend some more time
understanding the one that we already have, first.

I wasn't talking about replacing or modifying any system calls
at all. I am also perfectly content with the current UNIX filesystem.

What I was saying is that this seems to be a job for a high level
userland application that maintains a database - not a kernel
filesystem.

MC

Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 04:40:19PM +0200, Kyrre Nygard wrote:
Hello!

Just a wild thought here

After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
hierarchy, from the root and up. This is just a radical thought,
not yet an idea even -- but if somebody would be willing to think
with me -- maybe we could make a big change.

All the best,
Kyrre

Looks like most of this can be achieved using symlinks and some
scripting language for an indexing application. Perl is already
installed in base, and would be a good choice. Shell scripts would get
messy if not done very carefully.

Joachim

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 16:40:19 +0200
Kyrre Nygard <kyrreny (AT) broadpark (DOT) nowrote:

Hello!

Just a wild thought here

After noticing how much simpler it is using tags, for instance
with my bookmarks at http://del.icio.us -- compared to hours of
frustration trying find the right combination of folders and
sub folders in my Firefox' bookmarks.html, I was wondering
if the same approach could be used to arrange the UNIX filesystem
hierarchy, from the root and up. This is just a radical thought,
not yet an idea even -- but if somebody would be willing to think
with me -- maybe we could make a big change.

All the best,
Kyrre

That's what we effectively have now -- the directory names and the file
names ARE (i.e. serve the same purpose as) the tags. The purpose of the
tags would be to logically organize the files. The file structure does
that, and more.

So if you are interested in searching files belonging to the user name
kyrreny, look at /home/kyrreny and there they are. If you want to
refine the search a bit, say you are interested in your .pgp keys, look
in /home/kyrreny/.pgp and there are the keys.

If you are compiling a program and need errno.h, just look in
/usr/include and there it is.

Eric Johnson