[Novices] directories (was permissions & sharing between users)

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Ah, the fun of File System Hierarchy in Linux.  Not only do we get /bin 
> and /sbin, but there are versions of  the above in /usr and /usr/local.  
> And of course there's /opt, /home, /srv and a lot more junk in /var than 
> you might think.  Does anybody actually follow the "official" standard 
> for much of anything, or does everybody just put stuff where it seems to 
> work?

Most distributions follow the standard;  more and more with each
release.

/usr is for stuff that comes with the distribution

/usr/local is traditionally for software you add,  but /usr/local
quickly becomes a mess.

Hence /opt which has been around for longer than Linux but seem to be
making a come back.  Third-party packages make a directory under /opt
and dump themselves there - like /opt/hylafax, /opt/jabber, etc...

/home is for user's data,  real user's, not even root counts.

/var is for system & service data, although a couple of distributions
also use /srv/... for services that might have ALOT of data.

> Think it's worth making a presentation out of this?

Sure!  Are you volunteering or asking?  :)