The Linux file system

Hamish Taylor
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 10:03

Opinion and Analysis

In my last article I talked about working with shortcuts in Ubuntu Linux. In this article I want to explain the basics of the Linux file system and where you can expect to find things. Once again, I am basing this on Ubuntu Linux.

If you use Microsoft Windows XP then you know that when you install an application it will, usually but not always, be installed to "C:\Program Files\<application name>". The user's data will be in "C:\Documents and Settings\". If you are a Microsoft Vista user, then user data goes to "C:\Users\<your user name>\".

But how does Linux work? When you install an application or create a new document where does it go? Let's have a look at how Linux stores files in it's filesystem.

Well, firstly I am going to explain that the basic structure of the Linux filesystem originated in the Unix filesystem, which has been around for decades. It has a tree like structure which begins at the root of the filesystem, which is appropriately called "root". This is represented by the character "/", which is the opposite to the Windows folder character which is "\". From "root" we have a number of folders where the system actually resides.

Many of the folders off root will not be used by a normal user, so I won't bother talking much about them, but will mention their basic purpose.

From the top (in alphabetical order):
/bin: stores binary files (.exe files in Microsoft are binary files too). They include simple things like the zipping (compression) utilities

/boot: stores files needed for the booting up process

/dev: information about some of the system's devices

/etc: this is one of the interesting ones. "etc" actually stands for "editable text configuration". This folder has multiple sub-folders with many of the systems applications, so in some way it is similar to the "C:\Program Files\" directory. Each application will have a folder and a .conf file associated with it. These files are a little similar to the .ini files you find in some Windows applications. You can edit the .conf files to make changes to applications. For example, I run "squid" (a internet proxying application) locally on my laptop. I have to edit /etc/squid/squid.conf to set the "visible_hostname" to make it work

/home: is the next folder and this is pretty much exactly the same as "C:\Documents and Setttings\" (XP) or "C:\Users\" (Vista). You'll find user created files and folders here. It also contains a lot of files and folders which are preceded by a full-stop. These are normally hidden, but if you press Control-H they become visible. These "dotted" files and folders contain application settings relevant to the user. An example of this is the .Mozilla (Firefox) folder which contains things like the user's bookmarks

To see the remaining folders, please read onto page 2...