LINFO

The /usr/bin Directory



/usr/bin is a standard directory on Unix-like operating systems that contains most of the executable files (i.e., ready-to-run programs) that are not needed for booting (i.e., starting) or repairing the system.

/usr/bin is one of the major subdirectories of the /usr directory. /usr, in turn, is one of the largest (in terms of disk space consumption) of the standard first tier directories in the root directory, and it is the directory in which most standard programs are kept, along with on-line manuals and most libraries (i.e., collections of code that are commonly used by programs). The root directory, which is designated by a forward slash ( / ), is the directory that contains all other directories on a system.

There are more than 1900 executable files in /usr/bin on a typical system. A few of the most commonly used are awk, bc, bzip2, cal, clear, diff, du, env, file, find, finger, free, gcc, gdm, gedit, gpg, gunzip, gzip, join, head, kate, last, less, locate, man, nl, pstree, quota, spell, stat, strings, sudo, tail, telnet, time, top, uniq, vim, w, wc, which, who, whoami, wvdial, xpdf and zip.






Created August 8, 2005.
Copyright © 2005 The Linux Information Project. All Rights Reserved.