FHS (Filesystem Hierarchical Standard)
LPIC1-101LINUX
TL;DR
Binaries: /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin
Configuration: /etc
Logs: /var/log
Mount devices: /mnt, /media
Virtual systems: /sys, /dev, /proc, /run
Boot: /boot
Libraries: /usr/lib
Docs: /usr/share/man
/tmp
/home
/root
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Binaries:
/bin: Essential user binaries (ls, cp, cat, bash).
/sbin: Essential system binaries (for root) (fdisk, reboot, ip).
Configuration files:
/etc: passwd, fstab, hosts.
Variable data:
/var/log: If a service isn't starting, this is the first place you look. Specifically dmesg or syslog / messages
/mnt vs /media:
/media is for automatically mounted removable media (CDs, USBs).
/mnt is for manually mounted temporary filesystems by the administrator.
Virtual systems (exist in memory only, volatile):
/proc: Reporting on hardware and providing process information (read-only)
/sys: Hardware inventory and management (status of devices can be modified, writable)
/dev: Hardware access points (how you talk to hardware). The actual device nodes (files) used to talk to hardware.
/run: Runtime data since last boot (PID files, sockets)
Bootloader and kernel files:
/boot: vmlinuz, initramfs, grub/
User programs, libraries, and docs:
/usr: /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/share/man
Temporary files:
/tmp: Cleared on reboot
Personal directories for regular users:
/home: Documents, local settings
The home directory for the root user:
/root
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