Linux Basic

The Linux filesystem hierarchy follows the File hierarchy standard (2004). All directories serve a standard purpose. The following directories are explained with a short purpose of each.

/ base level

/bin system binaries

/boot boot loader

/dev hardware devices

/etc configuration files

/home user home

/lib system core libraries

/proc process info

/root root home

/sbin root binaries

/tmp temporary

/var variables … log files, mail files, temporal fies. Lots of i/o

/media removable media

/mnt mounted devices

/usr programs that are not essential to run are stored here

/usr/bin

/usr/lib

/usr/local local to system

/usr/local/bin

Explanation

/bin

The bin directory contains several useful commands for all users.

/boot

This directory contains everything required for the boot process except for configuration files not needed at boot time.

/dev

This directory contains files representing the attached onboard and peripheral hardware devices attached to the system.

/etc

This directory contains all configuration files related to system.

/home

A specific home directory is assigned to each user in a multi user Linux environment.

/initrd

initrd provides the capability to load a RAM disk by the boot loader.

/lib

This directory contains kernel modules and shared library images which are required to boot the system and run the commands in the root filesystem

/lost+found

In case of system crash or power failure the result of recovery operation will be placed in this directory.

/media

This directory contains subdirectories which are used as mount points for removable media such as floppy disks, CDROMs and zip disks.

/mnt

This directory usually contains mount points or sub-directories to mount the storage devices

/opt

This directory is reserved for all the software and add-on packages that are not part of the default installation.

/proc

This directory contains runtime system information e.g. system memory, devices mounted, hardware configuration, etc

/root

This is the home directory of the System Administrator.

/sbin

This directory contains programs related to system administration, maintenance and hardware configuration.

/usr

This directory contains user binaries, their documentation, libraries and header files,

/var

This directory contains system logging files, mail and printer spool directories and temporary files.

/srv

This directory contains site-specific data served by the system.

/tmp

This directory is used by many programs for temporary storage of data.