Linux File Structure

[sujithtom]

I am a newbie to Linux and use Fedora Core I. I don't understand those home, root, usr, etc. Can anybody give me a short discribtion of these folders?
Please also tell me where by default installed files are stored.
Also tell me about those extensions.

 

[GNUrag]

This is what i had posted some time back in the software discussions section:
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5895

The GNU/Linux Operating system does not use a single folder as a dump ground Here is a list of various directories and their contents...
/boot : the linux kernel and boot loader configuration files
/usr : Program files
/etc : Configuration files
/var : Mail, print web spool files
/tmp : temp directory
/home : Home directories of various users
/dev : Device files corresponding to various peripherals of your comp. (hard disk, printer, mouse, modem)
/mnt : Devices mounted onto OS to increase storage space
/lost+found : Orphan files are moved here
/root : Root's home directory
/proc : Process information pseudo filesystem.
/bin : various console utilities and apps
/sbin : system administration utilities
/lib : Shared Library files for your operating system.

Apart from these, you also have a swap partition that stores data swapped by the linux kernel.


As you can see, /etc is roughly equivalent to your windows registry. /usr can be called as Program Files directory... /boot & /lib can be called as \Windows\System32 directory. Contents of /mnt can be thought of as various drives in windows.

 

[pradeep_chauhan]

A new dir called /media has been introduced in Fedora core 3 (was there in gentoo long back) called /media it holds all the removable drives like floppy cdrom cdwr dvd flash etc. Earlier these were in /mnt

 

[GNUrag]

so /mnt has been removed from those distros... that could create problems with older scripts which search for /mnt directory... but then one can createa symlink to /media

ps: what is the use of /media ? All other UNIX have it as /mnt only

 

[pradeep_chauhan]

No /mnt is also there for the "static mounts" things like hard disk partitions it has something to do with standardization etc there is a url explaining that on fedora home page.

 

[sujithtom]

Thanks GNU rag. I have ONE more problem. When I insert a cd and open the cd folder from mnt, it displays a blank folder. It won't show up until I run the autorun utility. Any answers??? PS I use Fedora Core I.

 

[pradeep_chauhan]

mount the cd first(as root)
# mount /mnt/cdrom

 

[GNUrag]

exactly... you have to mount the device to read-write to/from it... In KDE, you can create a new desktop icon for CD-ROM.... and then right click to mount/unmount that device....

Tip: give [ # eject ] command to remove the CD tray from the command line...

 

[GNUrag]

Official Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

Written by : Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Group

*www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html


This is an authoritive document i've been searching since a while.

 

[firewall]

Here is another link

*linuxjunkies.org/Filesystem/index.html




a.m

 

[GNUrag]

@firewall, /media is missing.

This url also goes to my collection!!!