In Windows, just after the install, there are a few standard directories like Windows, Program Files, Documents and Settings/Users. In Linux, a similar structure exists but with much more directories. Let’s see the most important ones below:
/home contains user’s personal folders and files
/root contains the files and folders of the root user
/dev special files for system hardware devices
/etc system configuration files for the operating system and applications
/tmp here are stored the temporary files
/opt additional installed software which is not part of the operating system – 3rd party software
/boot contains a minimum number of files needed by the operating system to boot – a part of bootloader, boot manager and the kernel
/proc contains a pseudo file system which does not exist on the hard disk, all the resources under /proc are information that the kernel presents to the user as files, this way the user can access information about hardware, processes, settings and so on. Some of the files can be modified and the effect is replicated directly into the Kernel
/var contains variable data/data that changes very often
/var/mail contains the mailboxes if a web server is installed
/var/log log files created by the system or other applications
/bin files that can be executed (binary files) used to troubleshot or debug the operating system.
/sbin binary files that are used for system administration (can be used by root user)
/lib libraries of data used by the kernel and Linux OS (Operating System), needed to boot and to run commands from /bin and /sbin
/mnt used to temporary mount other file systems
/usr the place where user’s applications are installed. This folder also contains a file structure.
/usr/bin commands available for the user
/usr/lib libraries available for the user
/usr/local used to install available software only on the local machine
/usr/share architecture-independent data that is not modifying
