Strange Directories in /home (solved)

[sledgehammer]

In my /home directory are:

home/ftp
home/backupsys
home/postgres
home/johwhi

I think only home/johwhi should be there.  However, if I move ftp (owned by root), gslapt does not work.  I am afraid to move backupsys.  If I move postgres, Basic Books does not work.

System works great as is.  Should I just leave well enough alone?

John

[hata_ph]

In my /home directory are:

home/ftp
home/backupsys
home/postgres
home/johwhi

I think only home/johwhi should be there.  However, if I move ftp (owned by root), gslapt does not work.  I am afraid to move backupsys.  If I move postgres, Basic Books does not work.

System works great as is.  Should I just leave well enough alone?

John

As far as I know home/ftp is where all the packages will be store after you install any packages using gslapt. In VASM, there is an option to backupsys your system file, I believe it will store at home/backupsys......other I am not sure. But I do believe it is same to leave it alone....

[rbistolfi]

well, as hata_ph said, home/backupsys stores backups made by the installer and/or vasm. You can delete it if you dont use backups.
As you said, the others are used by some programs, I guess you can move them and do a symlink if you like, but honestly I dont see the point. They always are there on all the distros I used.
Indeed, /home is for users files. I guess dirs like ftp or www or postgres are used by a "public" or "anonymous" user, so they cant be in any specific user dir because of the permissions problem. Obviously, they cant be on any important location, since they are made to be accessed via network, so /home looks like a reasonable place for files accessed or shared by all the users of the system, or by network users, but not owned by any specific user.

[Joe1962]

http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4306.msg28187#msg28187

This is a quick start option for users without advanced needs. You can skip this and set postgresql up manually. Think of /home a bit like windows' "Documents and Settings" folder, where you will find "All Users", "Default User", "LocalService", "NetworkService" and even "postgres" (if you use their default windows installer). It is actually a good idea to have this stuff in the one place you will think of backing up, especially if you have it on a separate partition.