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Re: [LUG] Meeting, thanks. -ideas on promotion

 

On 10/05/10 15:28, John Hansen wrote:
I am of the opinion that many who move from Windows to Linux will find
the filing system very
different and not a little difficult to get used to. In that respect I
prefer the Windows filing system.


John W


It can take a bit of getting used to but it's much more powerful than having drive letters. The majority of the time installing applications can be done through a package manager (so no need to worry about where to put stuff), and any user specific files (settings, documents etc) are stored in the user's individual home directory off /home

If you really look into Windows then you'll see it's not as simple as it looks, for instance...

My Documents on Windows 95/98

C:\Windows\My Documents or C:\Windows\Profiles\Username\My Documents (if Windows has user profiles enabled)...

My Documents on Windows NT 4:

C:\WINNT\Profiles\Username\My Documents

My Documents on Windows 2000 & XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents

My Documents on Vista and Windows 7:

C:\Users\Username\Documents

Then you have application settings which can be stored in Local Settings or Application Data (at least on Windows 2000 & XP) or in AppData, Appdata\Local, Appdata\LocalLow on Windows Vista and 7.

Compare that to Linux...

Documents:

/home/username

Application settings:

/home/username/.application-name

or /etc/applicationname/

(Okay I know sometimes settings may be kept in folders inside folders such as Gnome applications).

Adding external media too is easy on Linux, nowadays anyway... stuck in a USB stick, memory card, CD/DVD and chances are an icon will appear on the Desktop, and usually it also appears in /media with a readable name such as the name of the disc/memory card/stick etc.

Rob

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