- cross-posted to:
- coolguides@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- coolguides@lemmy.ca
- FQQD ( @FQQD@lemmy.ohaa.xyz ) English155•13 days ago
i always thought /usr stood for “user”. Please tell me I’m not the only one
- Kuunha ( @Kuunha@lemmy.eco.br ) 48•13 days ago
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in 1969. Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05 disk packs (1.5 megabytes each) for storage.
When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp…) and wrote files to those new directories because their original disk was out of space. When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES. And thereafter /usr is used to store user programs while /home is used to store user data.
source: http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
- lascapi ( @lascapi@jlai.lu ) 39•13 days ago
You’re not the only one 😅 🙋
- superkret ( @superkret@feddit.org ) 27•13 days ago
I thought it was United System Resources.
And I still don’t know what’s the point in separating /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and /usr/sbin.
Also /mnt and /media
Or why it’s /root and not /home/root- DarkMetatron ( @DarkMetatron@feddit.org ) 28•13 days ago
Mostly historical reasons, /home was often a network mounted directory, but /root must be local.
And only regular users have their home in /home
- DarkMetatron ( @DarkMetatron@feddit.org ) 15•13 days ago
And I still don’t know what’s the point in separating /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and /usr/sbin.
This goes back to the olden days when disk space was measured in kilo and megabytes. /sbin/ and /usr/sbin have the files needed to start a bare bone Unix/Linux system, so that you could boot from a 800kb floppy and mount all other directories via network or other storage devices as needed.
- tromars ( @tromars@feddit.org ) English1•12 days ago
Is there a reason to keep this structure other than „we’ve always been doing it like that“/backwards compatibility?
- DarkMetatron ( @DarkMetatron@feddit.org ) 2•12 days ago
The structure is changing, many distributions already are merging more and more of the duplicated subdirectories in /usr/ with the counterparts in / but it takes time to complete that and at the moment those subdirectories are often still there but as symlinks to be compatible with older software (and sysadmins).
- jacobc436 ( @jacobc436@lemmy.ml ) 9•13 days ago
They hold “system binaries” meant for root user. It’s not a hard distinction but many if not most Linux fundamentals have their roots in very early computing, mainframes, Bell and Xerox, and this good idea has been carried into the here&now. Not sure about the provenance of this one, but it makes sense. isn’t /mnt /media different between distros? These aren’t hard and fast rules - some distros choose to keep files elsewhere from the “standard”.
/bin and /usr/bin, one is typically a symbolic link to another - they used to be stored on disks of different size, cost, and speed.
https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s16.html
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5915/difference-between-bin-and-usr-bin
- 4am ( @4am@lemm.ee ) 5•13 days ago
I think /mnt is where you manually mount a hard drive or other device if you’re just doing it temporarily, and /media has sub folders for stuff like cdrom drives or thumb drives?
- superkret ( @superkret@feddit.org ) 4•13 days ago
Yeah, but why?
You can mount a hard drive anywhere, and why not put all the cdrom and thumbdrive folders in /mnt, too?- DarkMetatron ( @DarkMetatron@feddit.org ) 7•13 days ago
It gets even more complicated nowadays because most DE will mount removable drives somewhere in folders like /run/$USER/
- Dalaryous ( @Dalaryous@lemmy.ml ) English6•13 days ago
/media is for removable drives. If you mount something there, file managers like Gnome will show you the “eject” or “disconnect” button.
/mnt drives show up as regular network drives without that “eject” functionality.
- taaz ( @taaz@biglemmowski.win ) English3•13 days ago
/sbin are system binaries, eg root only stuff, dunno the rest but I would guess there are some historical reasons for the bin usr/bin separation
- superkret ( @superkret@feddit.org ) 2•13 days ago
I know the distinction between /bin and /sbin, I just don’t know what purpose it serves.
Historically, /bin contained binaries that were needed before /usr was mounted during the boot process (/usr was usually on a networked drive).
Nowadays that’s obsolete, and most distros go ahead and merge the directories.
- schnurrito ( @schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de ) 12•13 days ago
I think it originally did under old Unix, it was what /home is nowadays; “Unix System Resources” is a backronym.
- bubstance ( @bubstance@lemmy.sdf.org ) English2•12 days ago
You are correct and this can be seen in some of the old AT&T demos from the '80s floating around on YouTube. There is even a chart that specifically labels a directory like
/usr/bwk
as the user’s home.Plan 9 also uses this old convention; users live under
/usr
and there is no/home
.
- jol ( @jol@discuss.tchncs.de ) 3•13 days ago
Yup same. I always wondered why there was a user folder when we already have home.
- gerryflap ( @gerryflap@feddit.nl ) 3•12 days ago
I was just about to post the same thing. I’ve been using Linux for almost 10 years. I never really understood the folder layout anyway into this detail. My reasoning always was that /lib was more system-wide and /usr/lib was for stuff installed for me only. That never made sense though, since there is only one /usr and not one for every user. But I never really thought further, I just let it be.
- Baku ( @Baku@aussie.zone ) English2•12 days ago
Likewise.
It’s also only just now dawning on me /bin is short for /binaries. I always thought it was like… A bin. like a junk drawer hidden in a cupboard
- Todd Bonzalez ( @todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee ) 66•13 days ago
“Linux File Systems”
*List of root directories*
Uh, where are the file systems? EXT4… BTRFS… FAT32…
- acockworkorange ( @acockworkorange@mander.xyz ) 1•12 days ago
Meanwhile the Linux Standards Base cries in a corner.
- geneva_convenience ( @geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml ) 41•12 days ago
wait /usr doesn’t mean user?
/etc has to be the worst name in there
- filcuk ( @filcuk@lemmy.zip ) 7•12 days ago
I wonder why that isn’t /cfg? Is there a historical reason?
- CrabAndBroom ( @CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml ) English14•12 days ago
According to this, it’s been around since the 70’s and was originally just a catch-all for files that didn’t fit in the other default directories, but over time has come to be mostly used for config files. I assume it would cause utter mayhem to try and change the name now so I guess it just sticks. Someone suggested “Edit To Configure” as a backronym to try and make it make more sense if that helps anyone lol.
- ulterno ( @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social ) English4•12 days ago
I too expected it to be “et cetera”.
- pixelblut ( @pixelblut@feddit.org ) Deutsch2•12 days ago
Try naming a folder “CON” in Windows and learn the magic of old spaghetti code by a multi billion dollar company.
- Revan343 ( @Revan343@lemmy.ca ) 1•12 days ago
It’s probably the standard in both POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification, so I guess ask Ken Thompson?
- Hyacin (He/Him) ( @hyacin@lemmy.ml ) English33•12 days ago
I learned about 16 years ago on a Solaris course that /usr wasn’t “user”, I still say “user”, but I’m happy to see the information spreading that that isn’t what it actually is.
- e$tGyr#J2pqM8v ( @96VXb9ktTjFnRi@feddit.nl ) 20•12 days ago
I learned that just now.
- JokeDeity ( @JokeDeity@lemm.ee ) 3•12 days ago
It’s going to be TOUGH to mentally replace.
- perishthethought ( @perishthethought@lemm.ee ) English2•12 days ago
Wow, what an odd coincidence.
- ulterno ( @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social ) English7•12 days ago
I used to pronounce it like yuzr, knowing that it wasn’t user, but not knowing what it was.
Now I have better context. Maybe I’ll go with U.S.R.- Malfeasant ( @Malfeasant@lemm.ee ) 1•12 days ago
If you want to confuse people… I pronounce /etc as “ets”, but one of my coworkers recently called it “slash e t c” and I had to ask him to repeat it a couple times before I figured out what he meant…
- ulterno ( @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social ) English0•12 days ago
Well, considering that I am with coworkers who don’t remember when to and not to put the ‘/’ at the start of the file path (despite me explaining it to them multiple times), “slash e t c” is probably the better way.
- wvstolzing ( @walthervonstolzing@lemmy.ml ) 27•12 days ago
A pedantic thing to say, surely, but the title really should’ve been: “Linux Directory Structure” – ‘Linux filesystems’ (the title in the graphic) refers to a different topic entirely; the title of this post mitigates the confusion a bit, though still, ‘directory structure’ is the better term.
- guillermohs9 ( @guillermohs9@lemmy.ml ) 3•12 days ago
Sure but for example I understand that /dev and /proc are actually kind of filesystems on their own
Yep, You are right. Done
- EarthShipTechIntern ( @EarthShipTechIntern@lemm.ee ) 1•12 days ago
Right?
I was expecting superiors to the fat & exfat file storage systems
- Laser ( @Laser@feddit.org ) 26•13 days ago
A good first approximation.
So where in this setup would you mount a network share? Or am additional hard drive for storage? The latter is neither removable nor temporary. Also
/run
is quite more than what this makes it seem (e.g. user mounts can be located there), there is practically only one system path for executables (/usr/bin
)…Not saying that the graphic is inherently wrong or bad, but one shouldn’t think it’s the end all be all.
- unexposedhazard ( @unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ) 3•13 days ago
On debian when i mount an ftp server through my file browser it uses gvfs
This will mount it to /run/user/1000/gvfs/ftp:host=,port=,user=
- guillermohs9 ( @guillermohs9@lemmy.ml ) 23•12 days ago
I always thought /usr was for “user”… TIL
- jalkasieni ( @jalkasieni@sopuli.xyz ) 13•12 days ago
It is, this infographic is wrong. Or I guess technically some other standard could define it like the infographic, but the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard defines it as a secondary hierarchy specifically for user data.
- some_guy ( @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ) 19•12 days ago
I never understood the title for /usr. Now I do. Thanks!
- davel [he/him] ( @davel@lemmy.ml ) English14•12 days ago
It’s just short for “user;” “User System Resources” is probably a backronym.
- CrumblyLiquid ( @CrumblyLiquid@lemmy.ml ) 3•12 days ago
This email explains it in detail: http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
TLDR:
/usr
stands foruser
- some_guy ( @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ) 1•12 days ago
That’s what I’d always thought. Thanks for correcting the bad info from the image. I’d hate to carry that bad info forward.
- Sonotsugipaa ( @Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English15•13 days ago
It feels like
/opt
's official meaning is completely lost on developers/packagers (depending on who’s at fault), every single directory in my/opt
belongs to standalone software that should just be put into either/usr/lib
or/usr/share
with some symlinks or scripts into/usr/bin
.- Psyhackological ( @Psyhackological@lemmy.ml ) 2•13 days ago
I’ve also seen creating there deployment or configuration stack of your choice.
- LalSalaamComrade ( @velox_vulnus@lemmy.ml ) English12•13 days ago
This is the FHS layout, which is one of the common layout style for Unix-like OSes, and it has nothing to do with Linux or filesystems in general. Misleading information. GoboLinux has what they call the GoboLinux hierarchy layout, that adheres to NeXTSTEP or BeOS. Nix and Guix has the Store hierarchy layout, wherein, everything is contained inside a store directory. Filesystems include FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, BTRFS, Bcachefs or EXT1/2/3/4, just to mention a few examples.
- Geth ( @Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 12•12 days ago
Visualizing it like this makes it so clear how incredibly outdated this design is.
- thingsiplay ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 4•12 days ago
What is outdated?
- bionicjoey ( @bionicjoey@lemmy.ca ) 11•13 days ago
Fun fact: you get more accurate info by simply running
man hier
- Samueru ( @Samueru@lemmy.ml ) 9•12 days ago
I’m pretty sure
sbin
originally meant static binaries and not system binaries lol - Zozano ( @Zozano@lemy.lol ) English9•12 days ago
Would like an easy way to remember.
- mnt = mount
- opt = optional ?
- etc = etcetera ?
- proc = process ?
- srv = server ?
- var = variable ?
- CrumblyLiquid ( @CrumblyLiquid@lemmy.ml ) 7•12 days ago
/srv stands probably for
serve
as in serving static files like static websites. (Source)More information here: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/index.html
- SplashJackson ( @SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ) 7•12 days ago
I need to get this in sticker form
- xorollo ( @xorollo@leminal.space ) 1•12 days ago
Me too