Explanation of the Ubuntu / Linux file structure : Ubuntu (all versions)
In the Linux file system everything is considered a file–even devices, drives and removable media. It definitely is a bit different than what you might be used to in the Windows world, but after a quick rundown (below) hopefully the organization will make some more sense.
The base (or equivalent of C:\) is called the root folder or “/”. The closest equivalent of “Documents and Settings\User” would be “/home”. The “/home” folder stores each users files, settings, pictures, etc. Most of what you do is held within the /home folder. Below is a quick explanation of the rest:
/bin– binary applications (most of your executable files)/boot– files required to boot (such as the kernel, etc)/dev– your devices (everything from drives to displays)/etc– just about every configuration file for your system/home– locally stored user files and folders/lib– system libraries (similar to Program Files)/lost+found– lost and found for lost files/media– mounted (or loaded) devices such as cdroms, digital cameras, etc./mnt– mounted file systems/opt– location for “optionally” installed programs/proc– dynamic directory including information about and listing of processes/root– “home” folder for the root user/sbin– system-only binaries (see /bin)/sys– contains information about the system/tmp– temporary files/usr– applications mainly for regular users/var– mainly logs, databases, etc.
I hope this helps. Again, for the most part as a regular user you wont need to bother with the rest of the areas of the system. Occasionally you might need to edit a configuration file in /etc (as you may have seen in earlier posts), but the rest pretty much takes care of itself.