The text of the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard is at FHS and is protected with a rudimentary system of write protection. Thus, this and the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Discussion page are provided for comments and discussion.

Contents

Suggested Readings

• Purpose of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

In addition to the purpose, it is interesting to skim through the entire document. There are rationale sections which explain why the standard was set up as it is, and detailed rules which, for example, require or prohibit specific files in the various directories (hierarchies).

If you skim nothing else, I suggest you skim:

• FHS#2_The_Filesystem which provides the rationale for the filesystem standard as a whole, including explaining the two pairs of file characteristics they considered -- shareable / unshareable and static / variable.
• FHS#3_The_Root_Filesystem which provides the rationale for the root filesystem, and some of the "rules", which for instance, require that there be no subdirectories of root other than those defined in the standard. (So, I guess my /home2 violates the standard -- I'll have to think about whether that is a problem I need to worry about.)

/home Directory not Adequate

The /home directory is trying to serve two purposes and, IMHO, is not adequate for both. It stores "personal" configuration settings (like for kde, mozilla, etc.) and it stores user's data files. On my Linux ssystems I will have additional directories for my data files, so, if desired, I can wipe out the /home directory to start with fresh configurations without losing data.

On my system(s), I will have (initially):

• /home2 — for general user data, not included in a specific directory listed below maybe I should call the directory /data — AFAIK that does not conflict with anything.
• /xdev — for X development stuff
• /abidev — for AbiWord development stuff

Location of Canonical Standard

The canonical version of the Filesystem Hierarchical Standard is available at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/.

A copy of the "TWiki-fied" version is attached to this page.

Contributors

• RandyKramer - 24 Jan 2002
• <If you edit this page, add your name here, move this to the next line>