this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
314 points (98.8% liked)
Linux
48287 readers
647 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
An application can know that a file represents a soft link, but they don't need to do anything differently to follow it. If the program just opens it, reads it, writes to it, etc, as though it were the original file, it will just work^tm^ without them needing to do anything differently.
It is possible for the software to not follow a soft symlink intentionally, yes (if they don't follow it unintentionally, that might be a bug).
As for hard links, I'm not as certain, but I think these need to be supported at the filesystem level (which is why they often have specific restrictions), and the application can't tell the difference.