this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by sag@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] pyre@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] brianary@startrek.website 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a little historical baggage, but look at Windows: multiple letters for drives, and all of the paths can be modified, so you have to ask Windows where any important directory is physically mapped (like SystemRoot or Documents or Temp or Roaming AppData or many others), because it doesn't have this nice consistent structure like Linux. Linux presents a logical layer and manages the physical location automatically. Windows makes you do the logical lookup yourself, but doesn't enforce it, so inexperienced programmers make assumptions and put stuff where the path usually is.

That's part of why logging in to Windows over a slow connection can take forever if you have a bunch of Electron apps installed: they've mismapped their temp/cache directory under the Roaming AppData, so it gets synched at every login, often GiB of data, and they refuse to fix it.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I switched to Linux a few years ago and you are not wrong.

Windows is a nightmare with directory organization.

Saved games can go:

  • My Documents/
  • My Documents/Games
  • My Documents/My Games
  • /saved-games
[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm more used to seeing shit like: c:/users/username/appdata/local/developer/game/engine/data3/saves/profile0/epe90_cats90-slot203.nonstandardfileformat

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 5 points 2 months ago

And then their non standard file format turns out to just be a zip file or gzipped JSON data 😂