GoboLinux


GoboLinux is an open source operating system whose most prominent feature is a reorganization of the traditional Linux file system. Rather than following the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard like most Unix-like systems, each program in a GoboLinux system has its own subdirectory tree, where all of its files may be found. Thus, a program "Foo" has all of its specific files and libraries in /Programs/Foo, under the corresponding version of this program at hand. For example, the commonly known GCC compiler suite version 8.1.0, would reside under the directory /Programs/GCC/8.1.0.
According to the GoboLinux developers, this results in a cleaner system.

Overview

The GoboLinux hierarchy represents a radical departure from the filesystem hierarchy traditionally employed by most UNIX-like operating systems where specific types of files are stored together in common standard subdirectories and where package managers 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. This is said to produce a more straightforward, less cluttered directory tree. GoboLinux uses symlinks 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. 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 merged /bin and /usr/bin in 2012; Debian enabled the /usr merge by default in 2016.
GoboLinux also allows the user to have different versions of the same program installed 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 new boot system that does not use System V or BSD style init systems.

File hierarchy

The design of GoboLinux was influenced by earlier systems such as NeXTSTEP, AtheOS, and BeOS, all of which adopted original filesystem structures while still maintaining a considerable degree of compatibility with Unix. At the root of the GoboLinux tree, there are six directories: Programs, Users, System, Files, Mount, and Depot. The contents of each are described below.
Compile is a program that downloads, unpacks, compiles source code tarballs, and installs the resulting executable code, all with a single command using simple compilation scripts known as "recipes".
The Compile system is somewhat similar to Gentoo's system, which is based on the FreeBSD Ports collection. However, Portage is made for a traditional filesystem hierarchy, compatible with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, while Compile extends the capability of GoboLinux's distinctive filesystem hierarchy into the area of package management. Thus, in GoboLinux, the filesystem itself serves naturally as a kind of package manager database.
The Compile program was introduced in GoboLinux version 011. Before that, there were discussions about porting Gentoo's Portage system to GoboLinux and developing the port as a SourceForge.net project under the name GoboPortage.
Compile's other features included:
; The use of each program's own download site
; Minimalistic and declarative-oriented compilation scripts
; Support of GoboLinux-style dependencies
; Path-agnosticism

Differences from traditional distributions

File hierarchy

In the GoboLinux hierarchy, files are grouped into functional categories in an index-like structure using symbolic links, rooted at /System/Index: All executables are accessible under /System/Index/bin, all libraries are accessible under /System/Index/lib, and so on.
This eliminates many traditional distinctions in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, such as the distinction made between non-essential files stored in /usr and essential, emergency files stored directly in subdirectories of the root directory. The GoboLinux developers have maintained that, although these distinctions were once very useful, they are no longer necessary under GoboLinux's schema.

Symlinks

There are symbolic links relating most of the usual Unix directories to the GoboLinux tree. Therefore, one can find directories such as /etc, /var/log, and /usr/bin in the expected places. These symbolic links point to the functional equivalent in the /System/Index tree; thus, traditionally crucial path names are resolved correctly. These compatibility directories are concealed from view using a custom kernel modification called GoboHide, which implements support for hidden files in Linux; it is used for aesthetic reasons only and is thus an optional feature.

Boot system

GoboLinux uses its own initialization procedure, unlike most Linux distributions which use a BSD or a System V procedure. At /System/Settings/BootScripts are a few files that command the entire boot procedure: BootUp and Shutdown run at system boot and shutdown, respectively; additionally, it is possible to define "runlevel" scripts to specify different ways the system may be initialized ; this can be controlled from the boot loader menu. The /System/Settings/BootOptions file separates site-specific settings from the rest of the scripts. Application-specific tasks can be found at /System/Tasks; they can be called by the boot scripts.

Releases

Releases have been numbered using the octal base system. According to the authors, this scheme was chosen because it keeps the typical leading zero that is present in many free software version numbers, and it is a play on the "version numbers race" that happened among Linux distributions around 1999. When read as decimal numbers, using octal numbers causes a deterministic "version bump" each eight releases. Up to version 013, GoboLinux made no "point releases", in order to avoid the implication that some releases were more stable than others. This tradition was broken with version 014.01, an update of 014 focused on bug fixes.
GoboLinux is currently developed for x86-64. It was officially made for the i686 only until release 015, but at one point an incomplete port to the i386 was made. Ports have also been made to embedded architectures, such as ARM and SuperH; these tasks were achieved with Bootstrap, a tool developed especially to automate making ports.

Reception

reviewed GoboLinux 010 in 2004:
Linux.com wrote review about GoboLinux 013:
Jesse Smith from DistroWatch Weekly reviewed the GoboLinux 015:
Smith also reviewed GoboLinux 016.