The directory hierarchy

Any user who would like to mount PackageFS using LUFS or FUSE frameworks, should follow the instructions shown in sections 4.4.1 or 4.4.2 . If the mount operation succeeds and the data have been correctly retrieved from the lower level package manager, the user can visit the virtual file system directory tree. He immediately experiences all the implementation usability: he can surf the packages database with his favourite file manager. In this chapter several xffm screenshots appear, taken from a Debian unstable system.

The PackageFS root directory holds $\texttt{AVAILABLE}$ and $\texttt{INSTALL}$ entries (see figure 5.1) that, in turn, store packages which are in the respective status. Although the meaning of these two subtrees is clear, we want to highlight that their content may be organized in various ways. In the next section we see how the user can set some options in the PackageFS configuration file.

Figura 5.1: PackageFS mounted on $\texttt {/packages}$.

Default settings imply the construction of a category-based tree. At initialization time, PackageFS asks the package manager for all the packages sections. Then it is able to build base subtrees as it is shown in figure 5.2. Looking at each directory details, we notice the amount of available and installed packages for each category (at the moment there are 1031 packages belonging to net category and only 19 of them are installed).

Figura 5.2: Default PackageFS view and the net section.

Deeper inside the hierarchy we come into the so called level-one, where we find packages entries. Till now, we walked through the same path for both $\texttt{AVAILABLE}$ and $\texttt{INSTALL}$ subtrees, but here things change.