A_Filesystem's_Guide.mw

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== UNIX filesystems organisation background ==

The main ideas to organize the files in the standard Unix filesystem are:
* group files according to their life cycle.
* visibility (convenience and access control).
* historical constraints.

Therefore:
* User data that should survive at all costs go to /home
* Configuration files are precious and must be easy to reach, they go in /etc
* Things that should not survive reboot go to /tmp
* Things that physically come and go appear in /mnt (old style) or /media (new style)
* Files that tend to grow too much unsupervised go to /var, so that they can only fill the partition containing this directory.
* Pseudo files used to communicate with the kernel go to /proc (old style) or /sys (new style). Pseudo files used to communicate with other hardware devices go to /dev.
* /boot can be used to keep the kernel file in a place the hardware can access easily
* The remaining directories contain binaries. /lib is for shared libraries. The basic low-level UNIX toolbox is in /bin, the tools needed only by the administrator are in /sbin. Everything else go to /usr.

== The Om 2008.8 filesystem ==

The root filesystem consists the following directories:

*bin    
*dev
*home
*media
*proc
*sys
*usr
*boot
*etc
*lib
*mnt
*sbin
*tmp
*var


The first difference to the standard Linux filesystem is the lack of /root directory. This directory is located under '''/home/root/'''.

The config and data files for contacts, calendar, memos and tasks are located under the ~/Applications and ~/Documents folders, cf. the [[Backup]] article.

The file '''/home/root/.ash_history''' is a history of commands for the standard shell (ash). If you use bash, it will create the file '''/home/root/.bash_history'''.

The inserted micro SD card is mounted under '''/media/card'''.

== See also ==
* [[GTA02 sysfs]]

==External links==
* [http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ Home of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]
* [http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-proc.html?ca=dgr-wikiaProcFile#N1030B Fortune Cookies through the /proc Filesystem]
* [http://ftp2.de.freebsd.org/pub/cLIeNUX/descriptive/DSFH.html The Dotted Standard Filename Hierarchy], yet another very different hierarchy (used in cLIeNUX)
* [http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.pdf Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 2.3] (January 29, 2004)

[[Category:Om 2008.8]]