Directory naming

[zba78]

I've often wondered who and how decided on the directory naming in Linux. Is is a Unix standard? are they also the same in *BSD?

Some make sense, like /home or /boot or /tmp but I wonder who thought up of things like /etc or /var and my personal favourite /etc/xdg

[fingal]

I've often wondered who and how decided on the directory naming in Linux. Is is a Unix standard? are they also the same in *BSD?

Some make sense, like /home or /boot or /tmp but I wonder who thought up of things like /etc or /var and my personal favourite /etc/xdg

I like /proc

I think /var is just because the content varies... for eg., log files are always being updated. The names are quite odd really.

[Cabhan]

Yes, it is a UNIX standard:

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html


What I never understood was /mnt vs. /media. But looking at the standard, I see the difference. So boo, I don't use /mnt properly . But /media is SO LONG to type.

[Vergil83]

What I never understood was /mnt vs. /media. But looking at the standard, I see the difference. So boo, I don't use /mnt properly . But /media is SO LONG to type.

same here

[valan]

But /media is SO LONG to type.

Nah, it's just 3 keystrokes
me<tab>

[lakerdonald]

eh despite what valan says to the contrary, I've consistently ignored /media. Perhaps I should have another look at the FHS, cos I can't remember the distinction between /mnt and /media.
/me goes and looks at the fhs

[dylunio]

I've heard of the FHS before, but never up to know looked into what it was, it was rather interesting.

*dylunio goes to add /media to his system*

[the0r3tic]

I use /mnt/<device>, it's more organized and clean.

[Cabhan]

/mnt is for filesystems, /media is for removable media.

I dunno...I rather like having all my mountables in one location.


Oh well.

[valan]

According to the FHS, /media is where all your normal mounting of things should be done and /mnt is for temporary mounting of filesystems. So your other partitions and removable media all goes in /media , but say you need to mount an .iso for a look at something inside, then that mounts in /mnt . Nobody forces you to use /media though, you can use /mnt and /media however you like.