The Linux Filesystem Hierarchical Standard

In Linux, and many other operating systems, directories can be structured in a tree-like hierarchy. The Linux directory structure is well defined and documented in the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS). This standard has been put in place to ensure that all distributions of Linux are consistent in their directory usage. Such consistency makes writing and maintaining shell and compiled programs easier for SysAdmins because the programs, their configuration files, and their data, if any, should be located in the standard directories.