<story><title>Ask HN: Recommended guides for learning filesystems?</title><text>Hi, *nix newbie here. I&amp;#x27;m struggling with understanding how my Ubuntu&amp;#x27;s filesystem works and what general practices various applications follow when they install to my Ubuntu instance. I&amp;#x27;m currently reading the ldconfig man page and feeling pretty lost. Any good guides or resources for understanding how filesystems and links work?&lt;p&gt;Thanks!</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>digikata</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re asking two different questions here. What are some standard conventions for where system files are placed in Ubuntu &amp;amp; Linux? And how are filesystems implemented.&lt;p&gt;For file placement you might start here:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Though I&amp;#x27;d caution that it&amp;#x27;s not a strict standard, and you find that many linux distributions vary from it in particular ways.&lt;p&gt;For the implementation of file systems on Unix&amp;#x2F;Linux&amp;#x2F;Ubuntu, I&amp;#x27;d say start at understanding inodes: (this link is just the first I found that seems like a reasonably short overview from my standpoint)
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.nmsu.edu&amp;#x2F;~pfeiffer&amp;#x2F;classes&amp;#x2F;474&amp;#x2F;notes&amp;#x2F;inodefs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.nmsu.edu&amp;#x2F;~pfeiffer&amp;#x2F;classes&amp;#x2F;474&amp;#x2F;notes&amp;#x2F;inodefs....&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There are a world of different implementations when you get to the details, but the Linux kernel builds or reuses this core idea of inodes into many specific different filesystems. From there there is a lot of info, but the Linux VFS layer handles many common functions of of filesystems in Linux (even if you&amp;#x27;re system is using ext4 or btrfs, etc specifically). So the Linus Kernel vfs docs may be interesting if you&amp;#x27;re looking to go even deeper.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Recommended guides for learning filesystems?</title><text>Hi, *nix newbie here. I&amp;#x27;m struggling with understanding how my Ubuntu&amp;#x27;s filesystem works and what general practices various applications follow when they install to my Ubuntu instance. I&amp;#x27;m currently reading the ldconfig man page and feeling pretty lost. Any good guides or resources for understanding how filesystems and links work?&lt;p&gt;Thanks!</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>crossbowerbt</author><text>A good book, but not widely known (maybe a little low level, but still...)&lt;p&gt;Ah, it&amp;#x27;s also free ;)&lt;p&gt;From the the haiku project website: 
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haiku-os.org&amp;#x2F;legacy-docs&amp;#x2F;practical-file-system-design.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.haiku-os.org&amp;#x2F;legacy-docs&amp;#x2F;practical-file-system-d...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>