Ubuntu File Structure

Ubuntu File Structure ? Those who are using Linux for years may have idea, how the files are organized or the file structure of the Linux. But, someone who is new to Linux, don’t know how the file system architecture and it’s working. Most of the people, new to Linux will start with Ubuntu Linux. because, it’s the most famous and easy to use for a newbie. This article, Ubuntu File Structure is for those.

The directory structure of Linux varies with various distros. Which means this is not applicable to other Linux distros like RedHat, Arch, Fedora etc. Ubuntu is built based on Debian, therefor you can see some similarity in the file structure of Debian and Debian based operating systems (Mint, etc).

All filesystems are contained within one directory hierarchy. The  root directory is the top level directory, and all its subdirectories  make up the directory hierarchy.

Ubuntu File Structure


• /bin ­­ binary applications (most of your executable files)
• /boot ­­ files required to boot (such as the kernel, etc)
• /dev ­­ your devices (everything from drives to displays)
• /etc ­­ just about every configuration file for your system
• /etc/rc.d ­­ contains a number of shell scripts that are run on  bootup at different run levels.
• /etc/X11 ­­ configuration files for the X Window system
• /home ­­ locally stored user files and folders
• /lib ­­ system libraries (similar to Program Files)
• /media ­­ mounted (or loaded) devices such as cdroms, digital  cameras, etc.
• /mnt ­­ mounted file systems
• /opt ­­ location for “optionally” installed programs
• /sbin ­­ system­only binaries
• /sys ­­ contains information about the system
• /tmp ­­ temporary files
• /usr ­­ applications mainly for regular users
• /var ­­ mainly logs, databases, etc.

I think now you got an idea about Ubuntu File Structure, and hope that you like this article. Thanks for reading.