Before you make any comments on these changes, please read the entire FHS document. Many of these changes are interdependent or are due to factors outside of our control. The rationale for all of these changes is located in the FHS document.

• Major Technical Changes (i.e., most, but not all of them)
  • /var/lib restored (briefly, it was not reasonable to relocate it to /var/state)
  • /var/state removed
  • Distributions may install software in /opt, but may not modify or delete software locally installed without the assent of the local system administrator.
  • /usr/X386 is no longer mentioned.
  • /var/mail is still the location that applications should access for the mail spool. However, it does not have to be physically located there.
  • some really old symbolic links have been removed
  • /var/spool/smail is no longer explicitly mentioned
• Non-technical changes
  • Various formatting, grammar, and typographical fixes.

Daniel Quinlan
FHS editor