Arch Linux File System

The Arch Linux operating system is built on top of a standards-based file system. This is 'maintained' by the pacman(8) package manager and the filesystem package. Breaking changes (i.e. altered permissions, missing directories, etc.) will be caught during upgrades and may trigger a failure.

Directories

/
├─ bin                                   -> /usr/bin
├─ boot           root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ dev            root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ etc            root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ home           root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ lib                                   -> /usr/lib
├─ lib64                                 -> /usr/lib
├─ mnt            root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ opt            root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ proc           root root   r-xr-xr-x
├─ root           root root   rwxr-x---
├─ run            root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ sbin                                  -> /usr/bin
├─ srv            root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ http        root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  └─ ftp         root ftp    r-xr-xr-x
├─ sys            root root   r-xr-xr-x
├─ tmp            root root   rwxrwxrwx
├─ usr            root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ bin         root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ include     root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ lib         root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ lib64                              -> /usr/lib
│  ├─ local       root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ bin      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ etc      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ games    root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ include  root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ lib      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ man      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ sbin     root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ share    root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  │  └─ man                          -> /usr/local/man
│  │  └─ src      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ share       root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ man      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  ├─ misc     root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  └─ pixmaps  root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ sbin                               -> /usr/sbin
│  ├─ src         root root   rwxr-xr-x
├─ var            root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ empty       root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ games       root games  rwxrwxr-x
│  ├─ lib         root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  └─ misc     root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ lock                               -> /run/lock
│  ├─ log         root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  └─ old      root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ mail                               -> /var/spool/mail
│  ├─ opt         root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  ├─ run                                -> /run
│  ├─ spool       root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  │  └─ mail     root root   rwxr-xr-x
│  └─ tmp         root root   rwxr-xr-x

All system-level binary directories (including /sbin) are links to /usr/bin, and all system-level library directories are links to /usr/lib.

The local directory mirrors the usr directory, except that manual pages are pulled to the top-level instead of being nested under share.

The true runtime directory is /run, though legacy links are also created.

Files

The filesystem package also installs a number of default configurations. These will commonly be edited and overwritten by users without leading to any breakage in the Arch Linux environment, so there's little purpose to documenting them.

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