Editing GoboLinux (section)

== Overview ==
The GoboLinux hierarchy represents a radical departure from the filesystem traditionally employed by most [[UNIX-like|UNIX-like operating systems]] where specific types of files are stored together in common standard subdirectories (such as <code>/bin</code> for executables and <code>/etc</code> for configuration files) and where [[package manager]]s are used to keep track of what file belongs to which program. In GoboLinux, files from each program are placed under their respective program's own dedicated subdirectory. The makers of GoboLinux have said that "the filesystem is the package manager", and the GoboLinux package system uses the filesystem itself as a package database.<ref>{{cite web |title = Simplified package management on GoboLinux - an interview with Lucas Villa Real |url = http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/pkgsrc-interviews.html#gobo-linux |author = Marc Weinem |date = 2008-03-13 |access-date = 2008-03-31 }}</ref> This is said to produce a more straightforward, less cluttered directory tree. GoboLinux uses [[symlink]]s and an optional [[kernel module]] called ''GoboHide'' to achieve all this while maintaining full compatibility with the traditional Linux filesystem hierarchy.

The creators of GoboLinux have stated that their design has other "modernisms", such as the removal of some distinctions between similar traditional directories (such as the locations of executables <code>/bin</code>, <code>/usr/bin</code>, and <code>/usr/local/bin</code>). GoboLinux designers have claimed that this results in [[shell scripts]] breaking less often than with other Linux distributions. This change, introduced by GoboLinux in 2003, has only been adopted by other distributions much later: [[Fedora (operating system)|Fedora]] merged /bin and /usr/bin in 2012;<ref>{{cite web |title = /Usr Move |url = https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UsrMove |author = Fedora Project |date = 2012-03-29 |access-date = 2016-12-30 }}</ref> [[Debian]] enabled the /usr merge by default in 2018.<ref>{{cite web |title = debootstrap: enable --merged-usr by default |url = https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=839046 |author = Debian |date = 2018-06-13 |access-date = 2023-04-22 }}</ref>

GoboLinux also allows the user to have different versions of the same program installed concurrently (and even run them concurrently). Furthermore, it has been claimed that the package management index could never become unsynchronized with the filesystem, because references to nonexistent files simply become broken links, and thus become inactive. GoboLinux's filesystem changes also allow other innovations, such as an entirely different scripts-based boot system that does not use [[init#SysV-style|System V]] or [[init#BSD-style|BSD]] style init systems or one of their replacements.