[TUHS] Understanding the /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin Split

Dave Horsfall dave at horsfall.org
Fri Feb 3 07:14:56 AEST 2012


On Thu, 2 Feb 2012, John Cowan wrote:

> Does anyone know what the "s" in sbin stands for?  "Superuser"?  I would 
> have put these files in /root/bin, but perhaps /root did not yet exist.

I seem to recall that they were statically linked i.e. not using those 
new-fangled shared library thingies.  And if you've ever tried to admin a 
system with a trashed shared library, you'll understand; it usually 
involves looking for the installation media.

> Not everything in /usr/share comes from /etc; in particular, 
> /usr/share/dict was formerly /usr/dict.

As I dimly recall, /usr/share was exported, hence the name.

-- Dave



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