Linux root folders

basic binaries such as cat, ls, cd

system binaries that a sysadmin would use, typically used only by root.

bootloaders

not in all distros

where your hardware devices live

• sda is your disk
  • sda1 is partition 1
  • sda2 is partition 2 …
• keyboard ?

Dennis Ritchie says it really just meant "etcetera"

All configurations are store here (well system wide settings)

each user has a directory here. each user will also have lib directories here for personal settings and others.

home.cache

home.config

home.theme (and icons etc…) Make sure you backup these hidden folders

home.local

home

Libraries that hold needed software for applications.

external mount points found here. Modern linuxes also mount stuff like usb keys, … in /media. Most distros automatically mount external drives in /media But if you are manually mounting somethin, use /mnt

/media/zintis/device-name i.e. /medai/zintis/usb65GB

optionally installed s/w would be found here. Also a good place to install apps that you developed yourself

All processes. These are pseudo files that have information related to currently running processes. For example if I run top and see that my emacs is using PID 5627, then I can peak in /proc/5627 to see all the files that my emacs has open.

/proc/cpuinfo has interesting info on your cpu. /proc/uptime holds your system uptime.

Just a home folder for root

Rather new, and is a tmpfs (it runs in ram only) Some distros do not have /run

self contained small applications

The root of server's externally facing directory.

system folder A way to interact with the kernel. A tmpfs, only exists in RAM

temporary files used by applications. Empty after a reboot, but NOT a RAM disk. These are stored on the disk itself, it just that it gets wiped on a reboot.

Non-critical application folders. Your user apps will be "Unix System Resource", but could also think of it as user apps directory

variable sized files