Understanding the Linux File System Hierarchy

Linux has inherited from UNIX a well-planned hierarchy for organizing things. It isn’t perfect, but it is generally logical and mostly consistent, although distributions do tend to make some modifications that force some thinking and adaptation when moving between, say, Fedora, Slackware, and Ubuntu. Table 10.1 shows some of the top-level directories that are part of a standard Linux distro.

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TABLE 10.1 Basic Linux Directories

Knowing these directories can help you find files when you need them. This knowledge can even help you partition hard drives when you install new systems by letting you choose ...

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