On Tue, 6 Mar 2018, Robert Nichols wrote: > On 03/06/2018 06:34 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > > > i'm curious about RH packaging policy that dictates that some > > command variants are packaged for fedora to install with symlinks > > and others with hardlinks. > > > > trivial example in /usr/bin on my fedora 27 system: > > > > -rwsr-xr-x. 1 root root 52984 Aug 2 2017 at > > lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 2 Aug 2 2017 atq -> at > > lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 2 Aug 2 2017 atrm -> at > > > > so even though all of those "commands" are in the very same directory, > > atq and atrm are supported via symlinks, not hardlinks. > > > > OTOH, consider the "git" command, also in /usr/bin: > > > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git > > > > as you can see, there are 116 hardlinks to that executable, pretty > > much all of them in /usr/libexec/git-core: > > > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git-add > > -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 41441 Feb 16 15:03 git-add--interactive > > -rwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git-am > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git-annotate > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git-apply > > -rwxr-xr-x. 116 root root 2273360 Feb 16 15:03 git-archive > > ... big snip ... > > > > is there a reason that "at" uses symlinks, while "git" installs > > with hardlinks? one would imagine that it would be the other way > > around -- given that the "at" variations are all in the same > > directory, hardlinks would seem to be the better choice since > > there is no possibility of crossing filesystem boundaries. > > In the case of "git" there's the matter of using 1 inode vs. 116 > inodes. sure, and that's admittedly an extreme case, but the same logic applies to saving 2 or 3 inodes. rday _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
