File System Organization (Directory Hierarchy)

Directories are special files which holds names of other sub-directories and files.   Classical directory structure of the Unix system consists of the subsequent directories: -

Figure

The top level directory is known as the root directory and is indicated via a single / (forward slash).  Whole the directories and files belong to the root directory.

There are following are the list of standard directory names in the Unix file system.

/           Root directory. This is the parent of all the directories and files in the Unix file system.

/etc      System configuration files and executable directory.  Many of the administrative, command-related files are stored here.

/bin   Command-line executable directory. This directory holds all the Unix native command executables

/usr      Architecture independent and architecture dependent sharable files

/lib       The library files for several programming languages like as C are stored in this directory

/tmp   This directory is used for not a permanent storage or the temporary storage of files

/dev    Device directory containing special files for character- and block-oriented devices such a printers and keyboards. File called null existing in this directory is called the bit bucket and can be used to redirect output to nowhere

/home This directory holds data which is specific to an individual user