openbsd difference between bin and sbin

noir911 · 07-15-2005, 11:13 PM

In OpenBSD all userland files are in /bin and system binaries are in /sbin.

But there are files in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin.

I was wondering why there're two seperate places to keep files. ie. /bin and /usr/local/bin? Why they don't put all the userland binaries in /bin instead?

btmiller · 07-15-2005, 11:28 PM

The /usr/local directories are for optional packages, i.e. stuff you installed from packages or compiled. The way it works is:

/ -- critical binaries (i.e. stuff that is needed before /usr is mounted
/usr -- system binaries
/usr/local -- as above

I guess the reason all stuff doesn't go into /bin is so you can have a small root partition that isn't cluttered by a lot of stuff you've installed.