The GoboLinux filesystem hierarchy

From GoboLinux Knowledge Base

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• /Programs/ - The programs directories. Under this directory, you find a subdirectory per program. Each program directory, on its turn, contains one or more version directories, and optionally, Settings and Variable subdirectories. See section "Anatomy of a package" for details on the structure of programs directories.
• /Users/ - The users' home directories. Let's say you have a user on your system called will. The will home directory will be /Users/will. Even the superuser (typically called root) has its home under /Users. It's possible to put /Users in a separate partition, so you won't have to worry about moving your personal files around when reinstalling/formatting, though in typical systems it's easier to keep the whole system in a single partition so that managing free space is easier.
• /System/ - Crucial system files. Most are managed by system applications (e.g. /System/Settings/passwd) and GoboLinux scripts (e.g. /System/Links).
  • Links/ - Contains "links" directories that index the files under /Programs.
    • Environment/ - Links to environment files. These are compiled into a Cache file and loaded by the shell, allowing programs to register their own environment variables.
    • Executables/ - Contains links to files from the programs' bin and sbin directories.
    • Headers/ - This directory contains links to files from the programs' include directories.
    • Libraries/ - Links to files from the programs' lib directories.
    • Manuals/ - Contents of manuals and info directories.
      • info - Links to files from the programs' info directories.
      • man{1-9}/ - Links to files from the programs' man{1-9} directories.
    • Shared/ - Links to files from the programs' share directories.
    • Tasks/ - Links to the programs' boot tasks from their Resources/Tasks directories.
  • Settings/ - Configuration files and links to files from the programs' Settings directories.
    • BootScripts/ - Scripts used during system boot. Actually, this is a symlink to Settings/BootScripts/ on /Programs/BootScripts.
  • Variable/ - Multi-purpose log, temporary, transient and spool files.
    • tmp/ - Temporary files.
  • Kernel/ - Kernel-related directories.
    • Boot/ - Programs and configuration files used during operating system bootstrap. This is where the kernel image and bootloader configuration files are located.
    • Devices/ - Device files (managed by Udev).
    • Modules/ - Contains the various kernel modules, organized by the kernel release.
    • Objects/ - Provides a view of the kernel's device tree (introduced with the sysfs filesystem in the kernel 2.6 series).
    • Status/ - Kernel status files (managed by the proc filesystem ).
• /Files/ - Files hold structured data that are used by programs but that are not part of the programs themselves. Those files are usually stand-alone entities, like fonts, codecs and plugins (and as such, do not require package management). Additionally, applications may define subdirectories of their own to store site-specific data -- Compile uses it.
  • Codecs/ - multimedia players such as MPlayer are configured with this path as the location to find external codecs.
  • Documentation/ - how-to documents on various subjects
  • Fonts/ - fonts (character typefaces, as used by the X Window System, Ghostscript and the Linux console). Contains subdirectories such as TrueType. Font path configuration for X can be found in /System/Settings/X11/xorg.conf and /System/Settings/fonts/fonts.conf.
  • Plugins/ - plugins, such as the ones needed by browsers
  • Compile/ - Recipes, packages, sources, etc. used by the Compile tool.
• /Mount/ - mounting point for additional local or remote filesystems. Common subdirectories are CD-ROM, Floppy and Zip.
• /Depot/ - repository for users' files. This repository is meant to be organized as the user sees fit. No subdirectories of /Depot are considered part of the standard GoboLinux hierarchy.

Here is an overview of the filesystem tree. The legacy folders (on the ":" part of the tree) are hidden by GoboHide; as you can see they are links to the GoboLinux folders.

/
|-- Depot
|-- Files
|   |-- Compile
|   |   |-- Archives
|   |   |-- Sources
|   |   `-- Store
|   |-- Descriptions
|   |-- Fonts
|   `-- Wallpapers
|-- Mount
|-- Programs
|-- System
|   |-- Kernel
|   |   |-- Boot
|   |   |-- Devices
|   |   |-- Modules
|   |   |-- Objects
|   |   `-- Status
|   |-- Links
|   |   |-- Environment
|   |   |-- Executables
|   |   |-- Headers
|   |   |-- Libraries
|   |   |-- Manuals
|   |   |-- Shared
|   |   `-- Tasks
|   |-- Settings
|   `-- Variable
|       |-- cache
|       |-- empty
|       |-- lib
|       |-- lock
|       |-- log
|       |-- run
|       |-- spool
|       `-- tmp
|-- Users
:
:
:-- etc  -> System/Settings
:-- dev  -> System/Kernel/Devices
:-- sys  -> System/Kernel/Objects
:-- proc -> System/Kernel/Status
:-- var  -> System/Variable
:-- tmp  -> System/Variable/tmp
:-- sbin -> System/Links/Executables
:-- bin  -> System/Links/Executables
:-- lib  -> System/Links/Libraries
`-- usr
    |-- X11R6   -> .
    |-- local   -> .
    |-- sbin    -> ../System/Links/Executables
    |-- bin     -> ../System/Links/Executables
    |-- include -> ../System/Links/Headers
    |-- lib     -> ../System/Links/Libraries
    |-- man     -> ../System/Links/Manuals
    `-- share   -> ../System/Links/Shared