[Info-vax] Search for folders

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/28/2024 3:34 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 14:38:39 +0100, Fred. Zwarts wrote:
>> The reason that SYS0, SYS1, etc was needed is that even systems booting
>> with the same OS (in [SYSCOMMON]) need specific data, such as system
>> parameters and sometimes specific DCL procedures.
>> By having SYS$SYSROOT defined as a search list to SYS$SPECIFIC,
>> SYS$COMMON, automatically first the specific data for that node was
>> selected and if not present, then the common data. Log files were
>> written in the SYS$SPECIFIC part.
> 
> VMS never had a clear separation between where you put code, read-only
> data, user/admin-writable config files, and system-writable data, did it?
> E.g. FHS-style /usr/bin for ordinary executables, /usr/sbin for sysadmin-
> specific executables, /usr/lib for shareable libraries, /usr/share for
> read-only data (architecture-independent), /etc for modifiable config
> files, /var/log for logfiles, /var/lib for important system-writable data.

In theory VMS has something similar.

SYS$MANAGER - the system managers COM files
SYS$SYSTEM - the ordinary system EXE files
SYS$LIBRARY - libraries (object libraries, shareable libraries, 
shareable images)
SYS$STARTUP - product startup files
SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES - kernel and driver stuff
SYS$HELP - help libraries
SYS$UPDATE - system update stuff
etc.

But it miss something for config and log.

And then we have all the products ported from *nix which
typical end up with the *nix directories under a product
root on VMS.

Arne