HIER

NAME

hier - Description of the standard file system hierarchy

DESCRIPTION

A typical Linux system has, among others, the following directories:

cLIeNUX INSERT
cLIeNUX does not directly adhere to the standard naming scheme presented here. cLIeNUX does however conform to the standard after a bit of "indirection". The layout presented here makes assumptions about the use of a system that are directly contradictory to the purpose of cLIeNUX, which is to be, by default, for single-user use of a Linux/GNU/unix box. Furthermore, the historical names of directories like "/bin" are incomprehensible to the new user, or have become meaningless catch-alls, such as "/usr". By the way, in AT&T UNIX circa 1971 "/usr" had the functionality of what is now "/home" in a typical unix, and what is "/users" in some *BSDs, and what is "/.hom" AND "/guest" in cLIeNUX. The terseness of the historical names is less valuable in a scenario where bandwidth between the user and the system is very high, and where shell filename completion can be assumed.

As my grasp of how to configure things with direct directory name dependancies improves, cLIeNUX will be more removed from what is shown here below this cLIeNUX addendum. This document is left in cLIeNUX as a guide for imported packages, and as an illustration of some aspects of how cLIeNUX is conceptually distinct from other unices.

The fundamental difference between a cLIeNUX file hierarchy and a traditional unix hierarchy is that in cLIeNUX the user IS the admin, and thus the root directory is an appropriate place for user-related directories. This removes an entire layer of namespace overhead from many things. If cLIeNUX is to be the basis for configuring a multi-user system, one general rule of a hierarchical namespace is that adding things can usually be done at will. Removing things is what is problematic, and, BTW, I am somewhat proud of some of the ways in which cLIeNUX is "less". "less" is harder than "more" in this context.

At this writing, most topic-named documentation in cLIeNUX is in the "/help" directory. The cLIeNUX eqivalent of the manpages, the cLIeNUX "seedocs", are in "/help/see". The traditional "/root" directory is "/owner" in cLIeNUX, to remove the confusion of "/" being "the root directory" when there's also a directory called "/root". For most of the traditional or Linux-standard directory names I've changed, that do still exist in cLIeNUX and haven't been simplified out completely, there is a symlink to the cLIeNUX directory name that is a simple conversion of the standard name. For example, "/.bi/" is a symlink to /command/ in cLIeNUX. This is where what's usually in /bin/ is. The cLIeNUX "Dotted Standard File Hierarchy" names all have dots in the first character so they are usually out of sight. The conversion is simple and consistant. "Take the standard name, prepend a dot, and drop the last character." This means that the DSFH symlink is the same number of characters as the standard name, which means conversions between the two can be done with simple scripts that work fairly consistantly on almost any input file, including things like library files.

DSFH is a good idea. I've been using it for about a year now, and I still type .et instead of /configure, or conf[tab], but I'm not a newbie. DSFH is newbie-freindly, and that's important, and a weakness of unix. The DSFH is also very valuable for internationalization, and from what little feedback I've recieved about cLIeNUX use, that is appreciated.

The symlinks in DSFH are exactly analagous to the infrastructure of a building. Hidden, but accessible, and fairly standard once uncovered, when necessary. I tend to use the "local" names, such as "/command", for things the user will see, and the dotted names, e.g. "/.bi", for scripts. cLIeNUX is the system. Apps don't tell the system what its structure is.

(Rick)

(OK, back to our regularly scheduled legacy manpage...)

/
This is the root directory. This is where the whole tree starts.
/bin
This directory contains executable programs which are are needed in single user mode and to bring the system up or repair it.
/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 /sbin and /etc.
/dev
Special or device files, which refer to physical devices. See mknod(1).
/dos
If both MS-DOS and Linux are run on one computer, this is a typical place to mount a DOS file system.
/etc
Contains configuration files which are local to the machine. Some larger software packages, like X11, can have their own subdirectories below /etc. Site-wide configuration files may be placed here or in /usr/etc. Nevertheless, programs should always look for these files in /etc and you may have links for these files to /usr/etc.
/etc/skel
When a new user account is created, files from this directory are usually copied into the user's home directory.
/etc/X11
Configuration files for the X11 window system.
/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.
/lib
This directory should hold those shared libraries that are necessary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root filesystem.
/mnt
is a mount point for temporarily mounted filesystems
/proc
This is a mount point for the proc filesystem, which provides information about running processes and the kernel. This pseudo-file system is described in more detail in proc(5).
/sbin
Like /bin, this directory holds commands needed to boot the system, but which are usually not executed by normal users.
/tmp
This directory contains temporary files which may be deleted with no notice, such as by a regular job or at system boot up.
/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.
/usr/X11R6
The X-Window system, version 11 release 6.
/usr/X11R6/bin
Binaries which belong to the X-Windows system; often, there is a symbolic link from the more traditional /usr/bin/X11 to here.
/usr/X11R6/lib
Data files associated with the X-Windows system.
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11
These contain miscellaneous files needed to run X; Often, there is a symbolic link from /usr/lib/X11 to this directory.
/usr/X11R6/include/X11
Contains include files needed for compiling programs using the X11 window system. Often, there is a symbolic link from /usr/inlcude/X11 to this directory.
/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.
/usr/bin/X11
is the traditional place to look for X11 executables; on Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/bin.
/usr/dict
This directory holds files containing word lists for spell checkers.
/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 /etc directory. Links from files in /etc should point to the appropriate files in /usr/etc.
/usr/include
Include files for the C compiler.
/usr/include/X11
Include files for the C compiler and the X-Windows system. This is usually a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/include/X11.
/usr/include/asm
Include files which declare some assembler functions. This used to be a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux/include/asm, but this isn't the case in Debian or libc6 based systems.
/usr/include/linux
This contains information which may change from system release to system release and used to be a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux/include/linux to get at operating system specific information. Debian systems don't do this and use headers from a known good kernel version, provided in the libc*-dev package.
/usr/include/g++
Include files to use with the GNU C++ compiler.
/usr/lib
Object libraries, including dynamic libraries, plus some executables which usually are not invoked directly. More complicated programs may have whole subdirectories there.
/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 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11.
/usr/lib/gcc-lib
contains executables and include files for the GNU C compiler, gcc(1).
/usr/lib/groff
Files for the GNU groff document formatting system.
/usr/lib/uucp
Files for uucp(1).
/usr/lib/zoneinfo
Files for timezone information.
/usr/local
This is where programs which are local to the site typically go in.
/usr/local/bin
Binaries for programs local to the site go there.
/usr/local/doc
Local documnetation
/usr/local/etc
Configuration files associated with locally installed programs go there.
/usr/local/lib
Files associated with locally installed programs go there.
/usr/local/info
Info pages associated with locally installed programs go there.
/usr/local/man
Manpages associated with locally installed programs go there.
/usr/local/sbin
Locally installed programs for system admininstration.
/usr/local/src
Source code for locally installed software.
/usr/man
Manpages go in there, into their subdirectories.
/usr/man/<locale>/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 <locale> substring.
/usr/sbin
This directories contains program binaries for system admininstration which are not essentail for the boot process, for mounting /usr, or for system repair.
/usr/src
Source files for different parts of the system.
/usr/src/linux
This contains the sources for the kernel of the operating system itself.
/usr/tmp
An alternative place to store temporary files; This should be a link to /var/tmp. This link is present only for compatibility reasons and shouldn't be used.
/var
This directory contains files which may change in size, such as spool and log files.
/var/adm
This directory is superseded by /var/log and should be a symbolic link to /var/log.
/var/backups
This directory is used to save backup copies of important system files.
/var/catman/cat[1-9]
These directories contain preformatted manual pages according to their manpage section.
/var/lock
Lock files are plaed in this directory. The naming convention for device lock files is LCK..<device> where <device> 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.
/var/log
Miscelanous log files.
/var/preserve
This is where vi(1) saves edit sessions so they can be restored later.
/var/run
Run-time varaible files, like files holding process identifiers (PIDs) and logged user information (utmp). Files in this directory are usually cleared when the system boots.
/var/spool
Spooled (or queued) files for various programs.
/var/spool/at
Spooled jobs for at(1).
/var/spool/cron
Spooled jobs for cron(1).
/var/spool/lpd
Spooled files for printing.
/var/spool/mail
User's mailboxes.
/var/spool/smail
Spooled files for the smail(1) mail delivery program.
/var/spool/news
Spool directory for the news subsystem.
/var/spool/uucp
Spooled files for uucp(1).
/var/tmp
Like /tmp, this directory holds temporary files stored for an unspecified duration.

CONFORMS TO

The Linux filesystem standard, Release 1.2  

BUGS

This list is not exhaustive; different systems may be configured differently.  

SEE ALSO

find(1), ln(1), mount(1), proc(5), The Linux Filesystem Standard

.\" (c) 1993 by Thomas Koenig (ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de)
.\"
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