.\" (c) 1993 by Thomas Koenig (ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de) .\" .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are .\" preserved on all copies. .\" .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a .\" permission notice identical to this one .\" .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working .\" professionally. .\" .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. .\" License. .\" Modified Sun Jul 25 11:05:58 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) .\" Modified Sat Feb 10 16:18:03 1996 by Urs Thuermann (urs@isnogud.escape.de) .TH HIER 7 "February 10, 1996" "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual" .SH NAME hier \- Description of the file system hierarchy .SH DESCRIPTION A typical Linux system has, among others, the following directories: .TP .I / This is the root directory. This is where the whole tree starts. .TP .I /bin This directory contains executable programs which are are needed in single user mode and to bring the system up or repair it. .TP .I /boot Contains static files for the boot loader. This directory only holds the files which are needed during the boot process. The map installer and configuration files should go to .I /sbin and .I /etc. .TP .I /dev Special or device files, which refer to physical devices. See mknod(1). .TP .I /dos If both MS\-DOS and Linux are run on one computer, this is a typical place to mount a DOS file system. .TP .I /etc Contains configuration files which are local to the machine. Some larger software packages, like X11, can have their own subdirectories below .I /etc. Site-wide configuration files may be placed here or in .I /usr/etc. Nevertheless, programs should always look for these files in .I /etc and you may have links for these files to .I /usr/etc. .TP .I /etc/skel When a new user account is created, files from this directory are usually copied into the user's home directory. .TP .I /etc/X11 Configuration files for the X11 window system. .TP .I /home On machines with home directories for users, these are usually beneath this directory, directly or not. The structure of this directory depends on local admininstration decisions. .TP .I /lib This directory should hold those shared libraries that are necessary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root filesystem. .TP .I /mnt is a mount point for temporarily mounted filesystems .TP .I /proc This is a mount point for the .I proc filesystem, which provides information about running processes and the kernel. This pseudo-file system is described in more detail in .I proc(5). .TP .I /sbin Like .I /bin, this directory holds commands needed to boot the system, but which are usually not executed by normal users. .TP .I /tmp This directory contains temporary files which may be deleted with no notice, such as by a regular job or at system boot up. .TP .I /usr This directory is usually mounted from a seperate partition. It should hold only sharable, read-only data, so that it can be mounted by various machines running Linux. .TP .I /usr/X11R6 The X-\Window system, version 11 release 6. .TP .I /usr/X11R6/bin Binaries which belong to the X\-Windows system; often, there is a symbolic link from the more traditional .I /usr/bin/X11 to here. .TP .I /usr/X11R6/lib Data files associated with the X\-Windows system. .TP .I /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 These contain miscellaneous files needed to run X; Often, there is a symbolic link from .I /usr/lib/X11 to this directory. .TP .I /usr/X11R6/include/X11 Contains include files needed for compiling programs using the X11 window system. Often, there is a symbolic link from .I /usr/inlcude/X11 to this directory. .TP .I /usr/bin This is the primary directory for executable programs. Most programs executed by normal users which are not needed for booting or for repairing the system and which are not installed locally should be placed in this directory. .TP .I /usr/bin/X11 is the traditional place to look for X11 executables; on Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to .IR /usr/X11R6/bin . .TP .I /usr/dict This directory holds files containing word lists for spell checkers. .TP .I /usr/etc Site-wide configuration files to be shared between several machines may be stored in this directory. However, commands should always reference those files using the .I /etc directory. Links from files in .I /etc should point to the appropriate files in .I /usr/etc. .TP .I /usr/include Include files for the C compiler. .TP .I /usr/include/X11 Include files for the C compiler and the X\-Windows system. This is usually a symbolic link to .I /usr/X11R6/include/X11. .TP .I /usr/include/asm Include files which declare some assembler functions. This should be a symbolic link to .IR /usr/src/linux/include/asm . .TP .I /usr/include/linux This contains information which may change from system release to system release and should be a symbolic link to .I /usr/src/linux/include/linux to get at operating system specific information. .TP .I /usr/include/g++ Include files to use with the GNU C++ compiler. .TP .I /usr/lib Object libraries, including dynamic libraries, plus some executables which usually are not invoked directly. More complicated programs may have whole subdirectories there. .TP .I /usr/lib/X11 The usual place for data files associated with X programs, and configuration files for the X system itself. On Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to .IR /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 . .TP .I /usr/lib/gcc-lib contains executables and include files for the GNU C compiler, .BR gcc (1). .TP .I /usr/lib/groff Files for the GNU groff document formatting system. .TP .I /usr/lib/uucp Files for .BR uucp (1). .TP .I /usr/lib/zoneinfo Files for timezone information. .TP .I /usr/local This is where programs which are local to the site typically go in. .TP .I /usr/local/bin Binaries for programs local to the site go there. .TP .I /usr/local/doc Local documnetation .TP .I /usr/local/etc Configuration files associated with locally installed programs go there. .TP .I /usr/local/lib Files associated with locally installed programs go there. .TP .I /usr/local/info Info pages associated with locally installed programs go there. .TP .I /usr/local/man Manpages associated with locally installed programs go there. .TP .I /usr/local/sbin Locally installed programs for system admininstration. .TP .I /usr/local/src Source code for locally installed software. .TP .I /usr/man Manpages go in there, into their subdirectories. .TP .I /usr/man/cat[1-9] These directories contain preformatted manual pages according to their manpage section. .TP .I /usr/man//man[1-9] These directories contain manual pages which are in source code form. Systems which use a unique language and code set for all manual pages may omit the .I substring. .TP .I /usr/sbin This directories contains program binaries for system admininstration which are not essentail for the boot process, for mounting .I /usr, or for system repair. .TP .I /usr/src Source files for different parts of the system. .TP .I /usr/src/linux This contains the sources for the kernel of the operating system itself. .TP .I /usr/tmp An alternative place to store temporary files; This should be a link to .I /var/tmp. .TP .I /var This directory contains files which may change in size, such as spool and log files. .TP .I /var/adm This directory is superseded by .I /var/log and should be a symbolic link to .I /var/log. .TP .I /var/lock Lock files are plaed in this directory. The naming convention for device lock files is .I LCK.. where .I is the device's name in the filesystem. The format used is that of HDU UUCP lock files, i.e. lock files contain a PID as a 10-byte ASCII decimal number, followed by a newline character. .TP .I /var/log Miscelanous log files. .TP .I /var/preserve This is where .BR vi (1) saves edit sessions so they can be restored later. .TP .I /var/run Run-time varaible files, like files holding process identifiers (PIDs) and logged user information .I (utmp). Files in this directory are usually cleared when the system boots. .TP .I /var/spool Spooled (or queued) files for various programs. .TP .I /var/spool/at Spooled jobs for .BR at (1). .TP .I /var/spool/cron Spooled jobs for .BR cron (1). .TP .I /var/spool/lpd Spooled files for printing. .TP .I /var/spool/mail User's mailboxes. .TP .I /var/spool/smail Spooled files for the .BR smail (1) mail delivery program. .TP .I /var/spool/news Spool directory for the news subsystem. .TP .I /var/spool/uucp Spooled files for .BR uucp (1). .TP .I /var/tmp Like .I /tmp, this directory holds temporary files stored for an unspecified duration. .SH "CONFORMS TO" The Linux filesystem standard, Release 1.2 .SH BUGS This list is not exhaustive; different systems may be configured differently. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR find (1), .BR ln (1), .BR mount (1), .BR proc (5), The Linux Filesystem Standard