From experience the most important folders are /usr/bin/ which contains installed software and /boot/grub/ which contains menu.lst. Sometimes after installing software through Synaptic the application does not appear on any of the usual menus and I have been left wondering how to access the software. The files needed are more often that not located in /usr/bin/. GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) is the programme that loads the OS after the computer POSTs. menu.lst is the GRUB file which contains the boot process configuration. I strongly reccommend making a copy of menu.lst before you start editing it. Open a shell terminal and at the bash (or alternative) prompt type:
sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.old
| / | Root direcory |
| /bin | Essential commands |
| /boot | Boot loader files (such as GRUB). Linux files |
| /dev | Device files |
| /etc | System configuration files |
| /home | User's home directories |
| /initrd | Initial RAM disk boot support (used during boot) |
| /lib | Shared libraries, kernel modules |
| /lost+found | Directory for recovered files (if found after a system check) |
| /media | Mount point for removable media such as DVDs and floppys |
| /mnt | Usual mount point for local, remote file systems |
| /opt | Add on software packages |
| /proc | Process information for Kernel control |
| /root | Superuser (root home) |
| /sbin | System commands (mostly root only) |
| /srv | Holds data for system services some of which is currently stored in /var |
| /sys | Real-time information on devices used by the kernel |
| /tftpboot | Network boot support |
| /tmp | Temporary files |
| /usr | Secondary software file hierarchy |
| /var | Variable data such as logs, spooled files |