On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 09:51:45 GMT "Rick Engebretson" <eng at pinenet.com> wrote: > MS Windows (since 3.0) does have a very clean directory and system > configuration structure. I realize this is an apples and oranges > comparison. But even simple configuration of Linux isn't simple. There was an article on this in Linux Journal about a year ago, but they really only scratched the surface. One problem, is that the exact structure and content of the trees varies from distro to distro... and then there is the /opt/ tree, which seems to be the place that all 3rd party software will eventually go, but since there is no distro standard, this is dubious. here is a basic breakdown.. I'm probably wrong about a lot of this myself... /bin - binaries, most basic commands are in here /sbin - system binaries, normally only root runs these /usr - vaguely user files, and programs that users run. However, root still owns most of this... $PATH/local - software installed on the local machine.. once again, a vague descriptor. Root still owns it. /mnt - other filessystems are mounted here: cdrom, floppy, nfs, windows etc. /tmp - temporary files, this is a volatile directory. /var - files that chage frequently, like logs, www content etc. /etc - system configuration files /boot - files used by the LILO bootloader, sometimes the kernel is her, sometimes it's in / /proc - a special virtual filesystem, a portal to the kernel and the system harware. The contents of /proc is created at boottime. /dev - special files, that are really links to device drivers. Each device is represented by a /dev/? file. This is currently changing. /opt - optional software, a place that may someday take over much of what is in /usr/? and several other trees. /lib - critical system software libraries, /lib/modules contains the kernel module tree. /root - root's home directory /shlib - these libraries are for SCO compatibility, and are part of the ibcs2 package. While I know it is the greatest heresy, it would be good if one day we could settle on a single distro, or at least a single distro standard for the directory tree. This would ease so many things... -.bill.layer.- -.those who are talking don't know, and those who know aren't talking.- -.frogtown.- -.minnesota.- -.u.s.a.-