I look at all the directories on my newly installed Linux Box... and I just go like...

Can anyone lend me a hand on trying to understand this mess to me? I couldn't be anymore lost... like... what is a 'bin' dir? It seems to have a lot of scripts in it... is that what it's for?

Also when I compile from source (tar.gz right?)... where should I put all the stuff at? Should I specify a directory for like... libraries, or other things? Because I'm just puting all the program files inside a folder like... /usr/local/*program*/

Anything would be appreciated... I can't even find a usefull linux site with tutorials for linux file structuring or use...

Any comments or websites would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

check out the links via the main page on this site, there's some good stuff there.

right... bin = binary. a bin dir is where all the programs go, whether it is c byte code, perl scripts or whatever. there are a few bin directories:

/bin/ = core system programs, ls, find, bash.. all the programs that you need to get linux alive...

/usr/bin/ = additional useful but not core programs, less, gunzip and a vast amount more.

/usr/local/bin/ = additional, like /usr/bin/ but on your own system,

Remember that unix is a networked os, and as such much of the conventions in it are based around large scale networks. On a large network, /usr/bin will frequently actaully exist on a central server, and each client uses it as if it were local, but files in /usr/local/bin are your own. This might get a little complicated and seem OTT for a simple desktop installation, but it's not a good idea to break conventinos, espeically when there's no need.

installing from source, you should unpack all tar.gz's to /usr/src/ and leave them there if possible. you shouldn't give the configure scripts additional prefixes unless you have a reason to do so. they will typically go in /usr/bin or such like, and that's a super super place for them. it's a slightly different strategy to windows in that you don't have a directory for each program, containing eveything it needs. under linux binaries go in a binary directory, libraries go in a library directory etc.. this also means that it is much easier to share libraries and programs, a core principle of unix.