Linux Directory Structure - FHS

i always thought /usr stood for "user". Please tell me I'm not the only one

"Linux File Systems"

*List of root directories*

Uh, where are the file systems? EXT4... BTRFS... FAT32...

https://lemmy.world/post/9437525

My version of this with a bit more detail

I don’t get why this sort of picture always gets posted and upvoted when it’s wrong for most distros nowadays.

wait /usr doesn't mean user?

/etc has to be the worst name in there

I learned about 16 years ago on a Solaris course that /usr wasn't "user", I still say "user", but I'm happy to see the information spreading that that isn't what it actually is.

/home is for every program to store its personal junk in hidden files apaprently

A pedantic thing to say, surely, but the title really should've been: "Linux Directory Structure" -- 'Linux filesystems' (the title in the graphic) refers to a different topic entirely; the title of this post mitigates the confusion a bit, though still, 'directory structure' is the better term.

/opt/(app)/bin /usr/lib/(app)/bin /usr/lib64/app/bin /usr/local/(s)bin

I know there is logic and mapping of where everything's supposed to be in theory but in practice s***'s kind of all over the place.

Here's a higher quality version

I always thought /usr was for "user".... TIL

A good first approximation.

So where in this setup would you mount a network share? Or am additional hard drive for storage? The latter is neither removable nor temporary. Also /run is quite more than what this makes it seem (e.g. user mounts can be located there), there is practically only one system path for executables (/usr/bin)...

Not saying that the graphic is inherently wrong or bad, but one shouldn't think it's the end all be all.

I never understood the title for /usr. Now I do. Thanks!

Those are directories, not filesystems.

It feels like /opt 's official meaning is completely lost on developers/packagers (depending on who's at fault), every single directory in my /opt belongs to standalone software that should just be put into either /usr/lib or /usr/share with some symlinks or scripts into /usr/bin.

what a mess

Visualizing it like this makes it so clear how incredibly outdated this design is.

Fun fact: you get more accurate info by simply running man hier

I'm pretty sure sbin originally meant static binaries and not system binaries lol

Would like an easy way to remember.

• Opt = optional
• Etc = etcetera ?
• proc = process?
• srv = server?

Permanently Deleted

GoboLinux has entered the chat

except nowadays many distro mounts removable media under /run/media instead of /media (for good reason).

I have always wondered why there was a developer folder(/dev)

Now i know that the government is trying to make people think it stands for something else so they can replace all programmers with advanced random number generators

I think it's probably useful to mention the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) here which describes most of the tree structure detailed in the diagram.

The directory layout mostly adopted by most distros evolved over time though, with major differences existing in how distros view usage of different parts of the filesystem, making it more of a standard that documents how the filesystem is laid out rather than one that defines it.

On a personal note, I hated /run for the longest time, thinking it a pointless, redundant quirk that exacerbated inconsistencies across distros. More recently though, I've come to value a space that is now (mostly) implemented consistently as a tmpfs mount from which to handle runtime data.

I need to get this in sticker form

So where are programs installed?

I was playing with Linux the other day and installed something and was tearing my hair out trying to find where the exe or whatever was to launch the damn program.

None of the folders made any sense to me.

Why is \mnt a "temporary" mounting point? I alwags put my permanent ones there. I'd say /media is temporary...

Just forwarded this pic to my dad. I'll be guiding him in installing Mint on one of his old Windows desktops this coming Saturday! Wish us luck in the coming years 😂

Thank you for that, I always wondered about the meaning behind a few of these directories.

immuatables be all about /var

For many systems out there, /bin and /lib are no longer a thing. Instead, they are just a link to /usr/bin and /usr/lib. And for some systems even /sbin has been merged with /bin (in turn linked to /usr/bin).

/bin confused me for a while because I thought it meant 'this stuff is trash, don't worry about it'.

If my /bin contains exe files, something has gone very wrong somewhere...

Also, all these infographics are a sad casualty of the /usr/bin merge.

Linux file system is ext* tho.

I've been using Linux on and off for years and I've never really understood what these different directories are for. If I don't know where something is I just search for it, though more often than not whatever I'm looking for is somewhere in the home directory. I'm also not sure of the accuracy of this though. I have a VM in /run, and an SSD and thumb drive in /media. I would've expected these to be in /mnt.

idk if unix or linux file system

Is there a version of this that wasn't awkwardly resized?

The icon for media reminds me of a bidet on a floor plan.

huh... an exe in my /bin ?

sus...

reminded me of this picture

Is it just me, or are the definitions for /sys and /proc mixed up?

Holy shit. I’ve been wondering about this for so long

Not when I use it!

wow i have needed this forever and im printing it and pinning it to my wall

A blast from the past!

Yes, you put the app in /opt, no not in /bin or /usr/bin

Distros should ship with this this under /readme.jpg

it usually seems more like whatever distro doing things however they want rather than following any standard

Don't forget /auto, for things that get automatically mounted when you first access them (autofs)

FHS is an absolute dumpster fire that would never be dreamed up in this day and age

I rarely spot /srv in the wild.

I use /data for local server data.

New knowledge. Thanks.

honestly /home should has never been created we should have kept user homes in /usr

This needs some modernization and simplification, if Linux ever wants to make it to the mainstream.

This is a much better layout:
/system (contains /boot, /dev, /proc, /run, /sys, /tmp and /var, all the stuff no one ever looks at)
/config (/etc renamed to something sensible)
/apps (contains /bin, /sbin, /usr, /lib and /opt)
/server (renamed /srv, only gets created when needed)
/users (renamed /home, also contains /root now)

This is one of my biggest gripes stopping me from switching to Linux. I just can't give-up windows' partitions. I find Unix/Linux file system to be incompatible with how I like storing my files.