I'm in the process of deploying a new host for all of Homeport's services (all the shell accounts, mail, etc etc), since we're moving in a month. This means setting up a brand new machine in a colo location from scratch.
I've chosen the Debian 'Sarge' release for my platform, seeing as I run it on my laptop and a few other machines hereabout.
One challenge with this is learning a new directory structure. Under FreeBSD (the OS I've been using for most of Homeport's services), configuration files tend to reside in /usr/local/etc/{service}/{various config files}. /etc/ is only for baseline system configuration files, not add-on apps, etc etc. Debian does things differently, and I found out recently there's a reason.
Debian adheres to the FHS - the Filesystem Hierarchy Structure, a standards document that defines what directories go where on a specific Unix (or in this case Unix-Like) installation.
I had no idea this document existed, but I'm pleased as punch to see it applied to what many consider the more chaotic of the Linux distributions - Debian. I wonder who else has taken up this standard?
