TheLinuxFilesystem

TheLinuxfilesystemhasatreelikestructure.
Thetreelikestructureisalsoreferredtoas
theDirectorytree
WhenwedrawtheLinuxfilesystemonapaper,
weseeatreelikestructuredeveloping.That's
whyitiscalledthedirectorytree.
Afolderisalocationthatstoresmultiplefiles
Windowsusersusuallyusethewordfolderinstead
ofadirectory,however,inLinuxterminologywe
alwayssayadirectoryinsteadofafolder.

TheDirectoryTree
Here are some facts about the directory tree

Eachdirectory(orfile)hasexactlyoneparent
Thefirstdirectory(topmost)inourdirectory
treeiscalledtherootdirectory.Itis
representedbyaforwardslash/
Therootdirectorycontainsfilesand
subdirectories,whichcontainmorefilesand
subdirectoriesandsoon.

Visualizingthefilesystem

/
bin
ls

opt
pwd

chrome

home
earth

music

john

tmp
david

documents

phone.txt

temporary files

var
log files

CommonDirectories
/
/etc
/bin

Therootdirectory,Whereeverythingbegins
Thisdirectorycontainssystemconfigurationfiles
Thisdirectorycontainsthecommandsandutilitiesthat
youonadailybasis(Alltheusershaveaccesstoit)

/sbin

Thisdirectorycontainsprogramsthatperforms
vitalsystemtasks(Networkmanagement,Disk
partitioning).Onlythesuperuserhasaccesstothese
programs.

/home

Eachuserisgivenadirectoryunderthehome
directory.Ausercanstoreanythinginhishome
directory
Ex:Musicfiles,Pictures,...etc

/opt

Thisdirectorycontainsoptionalcommercialsoftware
productsthatarenotinstalledbydefaultonthe
system(Ex:GoogleEarth)

/tmp

Thisdirectorycontainstemporaryfilescreatedby
variousprograms.Generallyclearedonreboot

/var

Containsvariabledata(Ex:databases,spoolfiles,user
mail,etc.arelocatedhere.)

TwospecialDirectories

Undereachdirectory,wehavetwospecial
directories
(1)Thecurrentdirectoryrepresentedas.
(2)Theparentdirectoryrepresentedas..

andsoonedotreferstothecurrentdirectory
andtwodotsreferstotheparent(Previous)
directory.

Absoluteandrelativepaths

Anabsolutepathbeginswiththerootdirectory
andfollowsthedirectorytreebranchbybranch
untilthepathtothedesireddirectoryorfileis
completed.

Example
/home/john/documents/phone.txt
istheabsolutepathofthefilephone.txt
Noticeweusea/toseparatebetweendirectories.

Arelativepathstartsfromthecurrentworking
directory.
Example
ifourcurrentworkingdirectoryisjohn
then./documents/phone.txtisrelativepathof
thefilephone.txt

Youcanomitthe./andsodocuments/phone.txt
alsoworks