[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]] [[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation License|/fdl]]."]]"""]] [[!tag faq/running]] [[!meta title="Why is `/usr' a symbolic link to `.'?"]] The distinction between `/` and `/usr` has historical reasons. Back when [[Unix]] systems were booted from two tapes, a small root tape and a big user tape. Today, we like to use different partitions for these two spaces. The Hurd throws this historical garbage away. We think that we have found a more flexible solution called union filesystems, which allow to create virtual filesystems which are the union of several other filesystems. However, support for union filesystems is [[still in early development|hurd/translator/unionfs]].