Linux · Filesystem Hierarchy (FHS)

You're compiling a C program from source on Linux. Which /usr subdirectories supply the header files it #includes and the libraries plus toolchain the compiler pulls in?

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More in Filesystem Hierarchy (FHS)

You move a script from an Ubuntu box to an obscure embedded distro and it can't find a binary at a hardcoded path. Why is assuming exact directory locations across Linux systems risky, and what standard is supposed to reduce that risk?

On a modern distribution you run ls -l /bin and see it points somewhere else instead of being a real directory of binaries. What happened to the historic /bin vs /usr/bin split?

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After a reboot, entries under /dev look freshly rebuilt rather than persisted from last session. Why do device files behave this way, and what creates them?

Where does a modern distribution keep dynamically loadable kernel modules, and what has happened to /lib as a top-level directory?

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