There are many cases when after looking at some of the FAQ on the web you ask yourself: “Are they for real? Who asks those questions anyway?” Questions like: “How Does Linux Kernel Versioning Work?” or “How much does Ubuntu cost?” don’t really provide you with the information you need. Mainly because they target a very specific kind of users.
On the other hand there are many really helpful FAQ, some of them were used in preparing this article. I also wondered around many forums collecting questions that real people ask frequently. The target of those questions are mainly Ubuntu users, who came from a Windows world and use it for about a week or two. Here are some of my findings. I hope they will actually help someone.
1. I know that Linux is case sensitive, but WHY???
The truth: Having it as case sensitive always made sense to me.. I always wondered why Windows wasn’t case sensitive..
The reason: case sensitive file names and options give you much more functionality and consistency. For example using ls in a script will always be ls and not LS, lS or Ls. Options like -u and -U will have different functionality, allowing you to do more. Also ls sorting is case sensitive too, that is why file names like Readme will come before readme.
2. Where is the ‘Program Files‘ folder? In which directory can I find my programs now???
You’ve got several… take your pick 🙂
Seriously, the are several places where programs typically reside
/bin – essential system commands
/usr/bin – general commands
Local application installs usually go in /opt or /usr/local (one
location came from BSD, the other from System V)
In addition there is /sbin, /usr/sbin and /usr/local/sbin which appear to
be for Linux/distro specific admin tools
If its a package with its own directory tree I would suggest /opt.
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