Linux Directory : Reference guide to Linux Directory structure

Reference guide to Linux Directory structure

When we install a Linux distribution we see that a number of directories are created. These created directories may be same or partially different on various Linux distributions. You might know about the directory structures & what purpose they serve. For those of you who don’t know about the Linux directory structure or have partial knowledge or just want to relook on Linux directory structure & its usage, this article will act as a reference guide.

We will start out this article with the Linux directories/partitions that are must for every Linux system & are required for Linux system to work properly. These partitions are ‘/’ (root), ‘/boot’, ‘/swap’. Though the ‘/’ (root), ‘/boot’ partitions are absolutely required but a system might work without swap partition, but its recommended that we have one for our Linux system. So let’s start out with these Linux partitions & their purpose,

Linux Directory structure

‘/’ (root) – / or root partition is one of the most important partition for a Linux machine. This is the partition where all other Linux partitions are. So this is the basis of Linux directory structure.

‘/boot’- Another important partition, boot partition contains all the startup files, kernel files & VMLinuz. In the recent, new Linux distribution, it also holds the Grub data as well.

‘/swap’- Swap partition acts as a virtual memory/RAM for the system & is used when your system runs out of the physical RAM. Though usually it’s a separate partition, we can also use a file to act as swap space.

These are the minimum partitions that are required to run a Linux system. Below mentioned are other partitions in Linux directory structure,

‘/root’- This is the home directory/partition for the administrative user i.e. root.

‘/home’- This is the directory that contains the home directory for all users other than super user root.

‘/etc’- This partitions holds all the important configuration files for the system. Once can also compare this partition to control panel on Windows system.

‘/bin’- This directory contains the common programs that are shared among administrative users, common users & the system.

‘/sbin’- contains all the programs that are used by system & system administrator.

‘/initrd’- This directory contains the system library files, files for the system that are needed by system or other programs to run.

‘/mnt’- this directory acts as a default mount point for all external devices like usb storage device, CD-DVD rom etc.

‘/opt’- Its used as installation folder for extra software & 3^rd party softwares.

‘/var’- This folder is the default storage for all the variable files created by users, like log files, mail queue etc. This folder also contains some temporary files.

‘/proc’- This virtual file system contains complete information regarding the system resources.

‘/tmp’- This partition acts as a temporary space for use by the system. Files are stored temporarily on this partition & are cleaned upon every reboot.

‘lost+found’- Every partition has a lost+found directory in its upper directory. This serves as a storage for those files that were saved during failures.

‘/usr’ – This partition mainly has all documentation to user- related programs. It also contains some user-related programs & libraries.

‘/misc’- This partition is used by system for miscellaneous purposes.

This is our article that will act as reference guide for Linux directory structure.