Basic Directory Navigation Commands
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Manmeet KaurBasic Directory Navigation Commands
Uploaded by
Manmeet Kaur) Basic Linux directory structure
Linux is based on UNIX and hence it borrows its filesystem hierarchy from UNIX. You’ll
fine a similar directory structure in UNIX-like operating systems such as BSD and macOS.
I’ll be using the term Linux hereafter instead of UNIX though.
/ – The root directory Everything, all the files and directories, in Linux are
located under ‘root’ represented by ‘/’. If you look at the directory
structure, you’ll realize that it is similar to a plant’s root.
Since all other directories or files are descended from root, the absolute path of any file is
traversed through root. For example, if you have a file in /home/user/documents, you can guess
that the directory structure goes from root->home->user->documents.
/bin – Binaries
The ‘/bin’ directly contains the executable files of many basic shell commands like
ls, cp, cd etc. Mostly the programs are in binary format here and accessible by all the
users in the Linux system.
/dev – Device files
This directory only contains special files, including those relating to the devices. These
are virtual files, not physically on the disk.
Some interesting examples of these files are:
/dev/null: can be sent to destroy any file or string
/dev/zero: contains an infinite sequence of 0
/dev/random: contains an infinite sequence of random values
/etc – Configuration files
The /etc directory contains the core configuration files of the system, use primarily by
the administrator and services, such as the password file and networking files.
If you need to make changes in system configuration (for example, changing the
hostname), this is where you’ll find the respective files.
/usr – User binaries and program data
in ‘/usr’ go all the executable files, libraries, source of most of the system programs. For
this reason, most of the files contained therein is readonly (for the normal user)
‘/usr/bin’ contains basic user commands
‘/usr/sbin’ contains additional commands for the administrator
‘/usr/lib’ contains the system libraries
‘/usr/share’ contains documentation or common to all libraries, for example
‘/usr/share/man’ contains the text of the manpage
/home – User personal data
Home directory contains personal directories for the users. The home directory contains
the user data and user-specific configuration files. As a user, you’ll put your personal
files, notes, programs etc in your home directory.
When you create a user on your Linux system, it’s a general practice to create a home
directory for the user. Suppose your Linux system has two users, Alice and Bob. They’ll
have a home directory of their own at locations /home/alice and /home/bob.
Do note that Bob won’t have access to /home/alice and vice versa. That makes sense
because only the user should have access to his/her home. You may read about file
permissions in Linux to know more on this topic.
/lib – Shared libraries
Libraries are basically codes that can be used by the executable binaries. The /lib
directory holds the libraries needed by the binaries in /bin and /sbin directories.
Libraries needed by the binaries in the /usr/bin and /usr/sbin are located in the directory
/usr/lib.
/sbin – System binaries
This is similar to the /bin directory. The only difference is that is contains the binaries
that can only be run by root or a sudo user. You can think of the ‘s’ in ‘sbin’ as super or
sudo.
/tmp – Temporary files
As the name suggests, this directory holds temporary files. Many applications use this
directory to store temporary files. Even you can use directory to store temporary files.
But do note that the contains of the /tmp directories are deleted when your system
restarts. Some Linux system also delete files old files automatically so don’ store
anything important here.
/var – Variable data files
Var, short for variable, is where programs store runtime information like system logging,
user tracking, caches, and other files that system programs create and manage.
The files stored here are NOT cleaned automatically and hence it provides a good place
for system administrators to look for information about their system behavior. For
example, if you want to check the login history in your Linux system, just check the
content of the file in /var/log/wtmp.
/boot – Boot files
The ‘/boot’ directory contains the files of the kernel and boot image, in addition to LILO
and Grub. It is often advisable that the directory resides in a partition at the beginning
of the disc.
/proc – Process and kernel files
The ‘/proc’ directory contains the information about currently running processes and
kernel parameters. The content of the proc directory is used by a number of tools to get
runtime system information.
For example, if you want to check processor information in Linux, you can simply refer to
the file /proc/cpuinfo. You want to check memory usage of your Linux system, just look
at the content of /proc/meminfo file.
/opt – Optional software
Traditionally, the /opt directory is used for installing/storing the files of third-party
applications that are not available from the distribution’s repository.
The normal practice is to keep the software code in opt and then link the binary file in
the /bin directory so that all the users can run it.
/root – The home directory of the root
There is /root directory as well and it works as the home directory of the root user. So
instead of /home/root, the home of root is located at /root. Do not confuse it with the
root directory (/).
/media – Mount point for removable media
When you connect a removable media such as USB disk, SD card or DVD, a directory is
automatically created under the /media directory for them. You can access the content
of the removable media from this directory.
/mnt – Mount directory
This is similar to the /media directory but instead of automatically mounting the
removable media, mnt is used by system administrators to manually mount a filesystem.
/srv – Service data
The /srv directory contains data for services provided by the system. For example, if you
run a HTTP server, it’s a good practice to store the website data in the /srv directory.
I think this much information is enough for you to understand the Linux directory
structure and its usage.
Basic directory navigation commands
1. pwd Command
The pwd command is used to display the location of the current working directory.
Syntax:
pwd
Output:
2. mkdir Command
The mkdir command is used to create a new directory under any directory.
Syntax:
mkdir <directory name>
Output:
3. rmdir Command
The rmdir command is used to delete a directory.
Syntax:
rmdir <directory name>
Output:
4. ls Command
The ls command is used to display a list of content of a directory.
Syntax:
ls
Output:
5. cd Command
The cd command is used to change the current directory.
Syntax:
cd <directory name>
Output:
7. cat Command
The cat command is a multi-purpose utility in the Linux system. It can be used to create
a file, display content of the file, copy the content of one file to another file, and more.
Syntax:
1. cat [OPTION]... [FILE]..
To create a file, execute it as follows:
1. cat > <file name>
2. // Enter file content
Press "CTRL+ D" keys to save the file. To display the content of the file, execute it as
follows:
1. cat <file name>
Output:
8. rm Command
The rm command is used to remove a file.
Syntax:
rm <file name>
Output:
9. cp Command
The cp command is used to copy a file or directory.
Syntax:
To copy in the same directory:
1. cp <existing file name> <new file name>
To copy in a different directory:
Output:
10. mv Command
The mv command is used to move a file or a directory form one location to another
location.
Syntax:
1. mv <file name> <directory path>
Output:
11)cal Command
The cal command is used to display the current month's calendar with the current date
highlighted.
Syntax:
1. cal<
Output:
12) date Command
The date command is used to display date, time, time zone, and more.
Syntax:
1. date
Output:
13)Echo command
The echo command is a fundamental command in Linux that is used to send
text or variables to the terminal.
