This is done to your directory list from being swamped with the setup files for programs. You have full access to them, and can see them at any time with the command ls -al. All applications have defaults. These defaults are set in files, and on Unix, those files are named .application, or in the case of a complex application such as a drawing program, or image manipulation there may be hundreds of settings in dozens of categories, so the practice is to call a folder .application with sub-folders for the categories containing the requisite files with settings. Most Unix programmers follow the practice of text setup files, so that they are human readable. And yes, this has been around almost since the beginning. Regards, Les H On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 23:30 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote: > Steve Searle wrote: > > >> I don't like to feel that Linux is not telling me something > >> because it doesn't think it is good for me. > > > > What, like hidden files? > > You mean, files whose names start with "."? > I must say, that is not one of my favourite aspects of Unix. > I was trying to think if it was always like that? > (I go back to Unix edition 5.) > > But in this case it seemed to be suggested > that one shouldn't see the whole of /etc/group > as "you don't need to know about that". > I like to decide for myself what I need to know. > >
