e564a3c1f7
* Always wanting keyboard graphics for shortcuts, Jorge suggested simple borders for simplicity. Great idea! Added. * Added Jorge's rounded boxes for note/warning/stop plus symbols. * If anyone wants to fine tune esp. colours, go ahead. Jorge and I are both challenged in that department. :) * A few small corrections and reformatting here and there. * Excluded the topic "Installation" from the contents until it's further along. git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@29269 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96
132 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
132 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
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"../../html-dtd/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-US">
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<head>
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<!--
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*
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* Copyright 2008, Haiku. All rights reserved.
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* Distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
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*
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* Authors:
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* Humdinger <humdingerb@gmail.com>
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*
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-->
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
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<meta name="robots" content="all" />
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<title>Filesystem layout</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../Haiku-doc.css" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<div class="logo">
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<img src="../images/logo.png" alt="logo" width="372" height="86" />
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<div class="title">Filesystem layout</div>
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</div>
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<div class="topnav">
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<p>
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<a href="contents.html">Contents</a>
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Previous: <a href="bootloader.html">Boot Loader</a>
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Next: <a href="gui.html">Haiku's GUI</a>
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</p>
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</div>
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<div class="content">
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<p>Haiku's filesystem layout is quite transparent, trying to always use non-cryptic names for files and folders, that don't leave the user guessing. Files and folders that are important for the system to function properly, are protected from accidental tempering by showing one of these alerts:</p>
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<img src="../images/filesystem-layout-images/achtung-user.png" alt="achtung-user.png" width="349" height="121" /> 
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<img src="../images/filesystem-layout-images/achtung-system.png" alt="achtung-system.png" width="349" height="151" />
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<p>The second alert pops up if you try to rename or delete something in the system hierarchy. Here, the "<span class="button">Do it</span>" button will only become clickable when you're holding down the <span class="key">SHIFT</span> key.</p>
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<p>Generally, there are three seperate branches springing from the root folder of the boot volume:</p>
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<table summary="layout" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2">
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<tr><td><span class="path">/boot/beos/</span></td><td> </td><td>belongs to the system. Don't touch!</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">/boot/common/</span></td><td> </td><td>holds files that are shared between users.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">/boot/home/</span></td><td> </td><td>is your personal folder where you keep your data and settings.</td></tr>
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</table>
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<h2><a id="system" name="system">The system folder - <span class="path">/boot/beos/</span></a></h2>
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<p>The fact that it's called "<i>beos</i>" shows Haiku's BeOS heritage. It wasn't renamed yet to ensure backward compatibility with BeOS software.<br />
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Whatever it's named, you should not alter what's inside. Every update of Haiku can add, remove or overwrite anything within it. If you want to add functionality, maybe with other Tracker Add-Ons or Translators or maybe another hardware driver, you install these things under your own <span class="path">/boot/home/</span> hierarchy or, if it's supposed to be for every user, under <span class="path">/boot/common/</span>. As long as Haiku isn't multi-user, this distinction has no apparent effect, as there's only one user with one <i>home</i> folder. But since there will be support for more users than one eventually, it makes sense to learn the right way from the start.</p>
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<p>So, let's say you want to install a new Translator for the latest image format, you <b>don't</b> simply copy it into the respective system folder. Remember: Don't touch!<br />
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Instead, you put it into the mirrored hierarchy under <span class="path">/boot/common/</span> or <span class="path">/boot/home/config/</span>.</p>
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<p>In our example the location for Translators in the system folder would be</p>
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<p><span class="path">/boot/beos/add-ons/Translators/</span></p>
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<p>So, the user "mirror" folder is either</p>
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<p><span class="path">/boot/home/config/add-ons/Translators/</span><br />
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or<br />
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<span class="path">/boot/common/add-ons/Translators/</span></p>
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<p>This has another advantage: If the component you have installed messes things up (which is possible as you install hardware drivers like this, too) you are able to choose "<i>Disable User Add-Ons</i>" from the <a href="bootloader.html">Boot Loader</a> menu and are thus always able to boot without the offending component.</p>
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<p>Most of the time, however, you won't have to deal with these things at all, since every software that comes from a trusted source should include an installation routine that handles these things.<br />
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<!--
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If you do want to know more about how things tick in Haiku, have a look at this layout chart of the system folder:
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</p>
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<p><i>TODO.... Table to be added ....</i>
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<table>
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</table>
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-->
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</p>
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<h2><a id="common" name="common">The common folder - <span class="path">/boot/common/</span></a></h2>
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<p>Haiku is not a multi-user system yet. Once it is though, every user has her own <i>home</i> folder that is not accessible to anyone else. Every application or added component like Tracker Add-Ons, Translators etc. as well as any data that's supposed to be shared between different users, go here.</p>
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<h2><a id="home" name="home">The home folder - <span class="path">/boot/home/</span></a></h2>
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<p>This folder belongs to you. Here you can create and delete files and folders as you wish. However, you shouldn't mess too much with the <span class="path">~/config/</span> directory and its subfolders. You <i>could</i> delete e.g. the <span class="path">~/config/settings/</span> folder without damaging the operating system itself, but who wants to lose all his configurations and application settings? In any case, the system warns you with the at the top mentioned alert.</p>
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<p>Besides the <span class="path">~/config/add-ons/</span> folder, which mirrors the system's add-ons folder for additional components as described above, there are a few other folders of interest. (By the way, the tilde ("<tt>~</tt>") is a shortcut for your home folder, so you don't always have to write "<span class="path">/boot/home/</span>" in Terminal.)</p>
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<table summary="layout" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4">
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/mail</span></td><td style="width:10px;"> </td>
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<td>By default, this is where your mails are kept.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/queries</span></td><td style="width:10px;"> </td>
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<td><a href="queries.html">Queries</a> are stored, by default temporarily for 7 days, in this folder.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/be/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>Again from our BeOS legacy, the <span class="path">be</span> folder contains what's shown in the <a href="deskbar.html#deskbar-menu">Deskbar menu</a>. You can add and remove items either with the Deskbar configuration panel or by putting files, folders or links into this folder directly.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/bin/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>Complements the system's <span class="path">/boot/beos/bin/</span> folder and holds all your command line programs.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/boot/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>This folder is the place for <a href="scripting.html#user-scripts">User Scripts</a> that are executed before or after the system boots up or shuts down.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/fonts/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>Simply copy a TrueType or Postscript font into this folder and its usable right away.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/settings/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>This folder contains the settings to all applications and a few configurations for the system. Some applications manage their settings in their own subfolders, others simply put their configuration file in there.</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/settings/beos_mime/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>In this <acronym title="Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions">MIME</acronym> database Haiku keeps track of all the different <a href="filetypes.html">filetypes</a> and their settings.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="onelinetop"><span class="path">~/config/settings/kernel/drivers/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>There, one settings files that may be of interest. <span class="cli">kernel</span> offers some low level configurations like disabling <acronym title="Symmetric Multi Processing">SMP</acronym>, activating serial debugging or enabling advanced power management. You activate a configuration line by removing the commentary symbol "<tt>#</tt>". Be careful here!</td></tr>
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<tr><td><span class="path">~/config/settings/Tracker/</span></td><td> </td>
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<td>Here are some interesting subfolders:</td></tr>
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<tr><td align="right"><span class="path">DefaultFolderTemplate/</span></td><td style="width:10px;"></td><td>Show and arrange all attributes and the window size to your liking. Every new folder you create will use it as a template.</td></tr>
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<tr><td align="right"><span class="path">DefaultQueryTemplates/</span></td><td></td><td>You can define the layout of query result windows for certain filetypes. See topic <a href="queries.html#result-window">Query: The result window</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td align="right"><span class="path">Go/</span></td><td></td><td>Put links to your favorite locations in here to make them available e.g. in open and save panels. See topic <a href="gui.html#favorites-recent">Haiku's GUI: Favorites and recent folders</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td align="right"><span class="path">Tracker New Template/</span></td><td></td><td>Add a template for any filetype that's then available from Tracker's <span class="menu">File | New...</span> menu. See topic <a href="tracker.html#working-with-files">Tracker: Working with files</a>.</td></tr>
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</table>
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</div>
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<div class="bottomnav">
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<p>
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<a href="contents.html">Contents</a>
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Previous: <a href="bootloader.html">Boot Loader</a>
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Next: <a href="gui.html">Haiku's GUI</a>
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</p>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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