Important Directories

Question 1

Every user account is assigned…?

Answer 1

A home directory.

Question 2

The _____ directory is used for global scratch space.

Answer 2

/tmp

Question 3

The /bin and /usr/bin directories contain…?

Answer 3

commonly executed files.

Question 4

the ____ directory contains system config files.

Answer 4

/etc

Question 5

Roots home directory, /root, should not be confused with the…?

Answer 5

filesystem root directory, /.

Question 6

Linux can be used to support many different types of computer systems such as…?

Answer 6

Servers, Development workstations, personal desktop system, etc.

Question 7

In order to standardize the filesystem’s directory structure across this varied range of systems, most Linux system employ a…?

Answer 7

Common naming and utilization scheme that makes the systems much easier to use and maintain.

Question 8

Home directory represents a Users…?

Answer 8

“Private” space on the system. (Typically, this is a subdirectory under the /home directory whose name matches the user’s login username. (Examples of this, such as /home/alice or /home/hogan) One significant exception to this is the superuser (or root user) whose home directory is usually /root.)

Question 9

For any user, the tilde character (~) represents the ____ of the user’s home directory when used as the first character of a file or directory reference.

Answer 9

FQN.

Question 10

Most obvious purpose for a user’s home directory is as …?

Answer 10

private data space, a place where they can store files away from the files of other users.

Question 11

Two different users can give files or directories the same name without…?

Answer 11

conflict, since each is stored in their own space.

Question 12

Keeping each user’s space separate from the others makes …?

Answer 12

security much easier for the users, as well.

Question 13

A user’s home directory provides a place to store user-specific…?

Answer 13

Configuration files.
(When Blondie logs in, for example, she may need a different environment than does Prince. Blondie may prefer different screen colors, different command shortcuts, perhaps even a completely different desktop environment than Prince. Local, user-specific configuration files make this possible. Many of these configuration files are created automatically in a default form when a user’s account is created, or on first use of a particular system resource.)

Question 14

Users are normally given _____ _____ control over their own home directories, while access to the rest of the system is restricted.

Answer 14

relatively complete.
( Alice, for example, most likely cannot modify or delete any of the configuration files in the /etc directory, even though she may be able to read them. And most likely she cannot read, modify or delete any of the files in the directories of other users of the system.)

Question 15

When a user first logs into the system, they are placed…?

Answer 15

in their home directory, that is the system sets their initial working directory as their home directory.

Question 16

In addition to their personal space in their home directories, users are given access to …?

Answer 16

shared “scratch” space in the /tmp directory ( A program to do data compression might store partial results in /tmp, only placing the final results in the user’s home directory when the work was complete.)

Question 17

Linux systems often implement ____ on user accounts to prevent any one user from consuming an unfair proportion of the available space.

Answer 17

quotas.
(The /tmp directory gives all users access to additional space to meet short-term needs without charging the space against their quota. This is especially important since users may not always be aware of how much extra space a service needs, and some services (such as X) cannot run at all if there is no temporary storage space available. This “global” scratch space is available to all processes on the system as well as all users. Files placed in this directory are deleted automatically by the system after a few days.)

Question 18

One of the unique characteristics of a Linux system is…?

Answer 18

its flexibility. (Virtually every aspect of the system can be configured in some fashion by editing a configuration file. These configuration files are normally placed in /etc or a subdirectory of /etc. (for example, the sendmail program, often used for running a mail server, uses configuration files placed in /etc/mail. System startup scripts are found in /etc/rc.d, while network configuration files are found in /etc/sysconfig. Obviously, ordinary users cannot modify the files in /etc (or even read them, in some cases), but system admin spend a lot of their time working with files stored here.)

Question 19

Most system commands are stored as…?

Answer 19

binary files in a machine-readable format. (Commands appropriate for use by ordinary users are usually placed in the /bin or /usr/bin binary directories.)

Question 20

Core utilities like ___, ____, ____, ___, and the _____ ____ _____, without which the system would not be usable, go in /bin.

Answer 20

ls, cd, cp, mv and the vi text editor.

Question 21

Supplementary utilities like ______, _____ ____ ____ and ______ _____ go in /usr/bin, which can be made available to other systems over the network.

Answer 21

Compilers, your web browser and office suite.

Question 22

Think of /bin and /usr/bin as ________ command directories.

Answer 22

unprivileged. Since no special privileges are required to use the commands found in them.

Question 23

Just as /bin and /usr/bin store command files for ordinary users, so also….?

Answer 23

/sbin and /usr/bin store command files for use by the superuser, root. (These include commands for maintenance. These privileged commands are also stored in two separate directories, for the same reasons as for /bin and /usr/bin)

Question 24

Collections of commands and configuration files found in places like /bin or /etc change very little, if at all from day to day. These files tend to be…?

Answer 24

very stable.

Question 25

Some files, change frequently. These include…?

Answer 25

incoming/outgoing email, system logs, news group collections, web sites, ftp file archives, and the like. (These variable content files and directories are usually collected in the /var directory. Placing such files here makes it easier to allocate space for them , and also make it easier to protect the more stable files found elsewhere on the system.)

Question 26

The word _____ is the username of the superuser, that is, the user with supreme authority over the system. It is also the name of that user’s home directory, /root. And it is also the term used for the base (top?) of the filesystem’s directory tree, the / directory. Normally, the meaning of the term can be gleaned from context, but a phrase such as “root directory” can be ambiguous. Try to anticipate and avoid such confusion in your own communication, and seek clarification if you encounter a use of the word that cannot be resolved from context.

Answer 26

root.