Soft links / Hard links:

A soft link will create a link directly to the original file and a hard link creates a copy of the original file and updates them both if either one is updated.

So what exactly is the purpose in their difference?


Sticky:

Throught permissions and gui's you find the 'Sticky' word. What does it mean and how does it affect things?

with a hard link, both files must be within the same partiton. here's some info on the sticky bit:
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/UAU/files/sticky.html

A hard link actually point the same cluster on the hard drive as the original filename.
It doesn't make a copy of the file.
A soft link only make link to the file name.

When deleteing the soft link the file remains but when you delete a

You can also prevent or allow web page users on your server to follow symlinks.

run the command info ln to get more info.

ummm.. it's a bit more complicated that just "if you delete this and that..."

in the hard drive inode table, every file has a list of the number of hardlinks set to it. if an existing file has a hard link added to it, then the link_count or whatever it's called is incremented. there are now two hard links to the same file. a hard link points to the spot on the harddrive where the file is. if the file is moved, then the hardlinks remain. both links are essentially exactly the same. if you delete one, the link_count is decremented. if the link_count is 0, then the file is deleted.

a softlink, by contrast, just points to the file name. it just says, don't look at this file, look at /usr/bin/something-else. if the actual file is moved, then the softlink is broken, and accessing it will give a file-not-found error.