On Fri, Jul 07, 2023 at 06:42:47AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> On 7/7/23 04:23, hlyg wrote:
> > it seems natural to me to use deb12 for debian 12
> >
> > deb for debian as in file name extension of package
> >
>
> I believe that using the abbreviation "deb" as the file name extension for
> packages, is due to, at the time of the creation of Debian, the limitation
> on file name extensions [...]
This is only for the FAT file system. Actually, for the UNIX variants which
existed before Debian was born, the dot is just one normal character in the
file name. Only slash (directory separator) and null (because C strings) were
treated specially. And there were just two special file names, "." (for "this
directory" and ".." for "parent", that's all.
Some utilities (ls) also treat a file name starting with a dot especiall,
but the underlying operating system doesn't care.
Internally, FAT allocated exactly 11 characters for the file name (8 for
the "base", 3 for the extension: the dot was implicit). The operating
system treated some of these names specially, and with the arrival of
Windows, the UI started hiding the extension, which led to lots of fun
for trojans ("foo.jpg.exe", anyone?)
So no, this "file extension" thing is something popularized by Microsoft
(they seem to have copied it from NCR: Microsoft didn't invent anything).
It tends to creep into sane environments, though.
Cheers
--
t
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