Labeling in Linux? Why do they invent words?

[tom2u]

I'm new to the world of Linux and when I looked into one of the OS folders I saw words that didn't look like English. Is this to make Linux international in scope? That would make sense I guess though I would think most users would prefer not having to learn a new vocabulary to use a different OS. Not sure what other OS's do in different languages.

 

[mbreslin1954]

What words are you talking about? Care to provide some examples? I don't have an installation of Linux handy to look at.

 

[randomizer]

Most Linux distributions follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard to varying degrees of compliance. Most of the names are abbreviations or acronyms, with much confusion about what the expanded names actually are. In the case of /etc the commonly accepted original name (etcetera) no longer makes sense considering what the directory is actually used for now, so people have come up with new backronyms for it.

 

[Edir]

are these names Var, etc, usr etcetera?
If so then these are abbreviations.
Your user files will be found in usr, which is short for User.
I am not sure why they don't give full names - it may be to make file paths shorter.
You will eventually get used to whats where.

-Edir



P.S. Remember to choose best answer

 

[mbreslin1954]

They're abbreviations because originally in Unix there was no graphical user interface or mouse, everything was done from the keyboard in a terminal window (command line), and people didn't want to type more than they had to. So abbreviations were used. That's why the copy command is "cpy" instead of "copy", and "change directory" is "cd". Less typing.