</P
><P
>In early 1995, the goal of developing a more comprehensive
version of FSSTND to address not only Linux, but other UNIX-like
systems was adopted with the help of members of the BSD development
community. As a result, a concerted effort was made to focus on
issues that were general to UNIX-like systems. In recognition of this
widening of scope, the name of the standard was changed to Filesystem
Hierarchy Standard or FHS for short.</P
><P
>Volunteers who have contributed extensively to this standard are
listed at the end of this document. This standard represents a
consensus view of those and other contributors.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><HR><H2
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="GENERALGUIDELINES"
>General Guidelines</A
></H2
><P
>Here are some of the guidelines that have been used in the development
of this standard:</P
><P
></P
><UL
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: disc"
><P
>Solve technical problems while limiting transitional difficulties.</P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: disc"
><P
>Make the specification reasonably stable.</P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: disc"
><P
>Gain the approval of distributors, developers, and other decision-makers
in relevant development groups and encourage their participation.</P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: disc"
><P
>Provide a standard that is attractive to the implementors of different
UNIX-like systems.</P
></LI
></UL
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><HR><H2
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="SCOPE"
>Scope</A
></H2
><P
>This document specifies a standard filesystem hierarchy for FHS
filesystems by specifying the location of files and directories, and
the contents of some system files.</P
><P
>This standard has been designed to be used by system
integrators, package developers, and system administrators in the
construction and maintenance of FHS compliant filesystems. It is
primarily intended to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to
manage a conforming filesystem hierarchy.</P
><P
>The FHS grew out of earlier work on FSSTND, a filesystem
organization standard for the Linux operating system. It builds on
FSSTND to address interoperability issues not just in the Linux
community but in a wider arena including 4.4BSD-based operating
systems. It incorporates lessons learned in the BSD world and
elsewhere about multi-architecture support and the demands of
heterogeneous networking.</P
><P
>Although this standard is more comprehensive than previous
attempts at filesystem hierarchy standardization, periodic updates may
become necessary as requirements change in relation to emerging
technology. It is also possible that better solutions to the problems
addressed here will be discovered so that our solutions will no longer
be the best possible solutions. Supplementary drafts may be released
in addition to periodic updates to this document. However, a specific
goal is backwards compatibility from one release of this document to
the next.</P
><P
>Comments related to this standard are welcome. Any comments or
suggestions for changes may be directed to the FHS editor (Daniel
Quinlan <quinlan@pathname.com>) or the FHS mailing list.
Typographical or grammatical comments should be directed to the FHS
editor.</P
><P
>Before sending mail to the mailing list it is requested that you
first contact the FHS editor in order to avoid excessive re-discussion
of old topics.</P
><P
>Questions about how to interpret items in this document may
occasionally arise. If you have need for a clarification, please
contact the FHS editor. Since this standard represents a consensus of
many participants, it is important to make certain that any
interpretation also represents their collective opinion. For this
reason it may not be possible to provide an immediate response unless
the inquiry has been the subject of previous discussion.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><HR><H2
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"
>Acknowledgments</A
></H2
><P
>The developers of the FHS wish to thank the developers, system
administrators, and users whose input was essential to this standard.
We wish to thank each of the contributors who helped to write,
compile, and compose this standard.</P
><P
>The FHS Group also wishes to thank those Linux developers who
supported the FSSTND, the predecessor to this standard. If they
hadn't demonstrated that the FSSTND was beneficial, the FHS could
never have evolved.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECTION"
><HR><H2
CLASS="SECTION"
><A
NAME="CONTRIBUTORS"
>Contributors</A
></H2
><DIV
CLASS="INFORMALTABLE"
><P
></P
><A
NAME="AEN2813"
></A
><TABLE
BORDER="0"
FRAME="void"
CLASS="CALSTABLE"
><COL
WIDTH="1*"
TITLE="C1"><COL
WIDTH="1*"
TITLE="C2"><TBODY
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Brandon S. Allbery</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Keith Bostic</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><bostic@cs.berkeley.edu></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Drew Eckhardt</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><drew@colorado.edu></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Rik Faith</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><faith@cs.unc.edu></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Stephen Harris</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><sweh@spuddy.mew.co.uk></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Ian Jackson</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><ijackson@cus.cam.ac.uk></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Andreas Jaeger</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><aj@suse.de></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>John A. Martin</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><jmartin@acm.org></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Ian McCloghrie</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><ian@ucsd.edu></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Chris Metcalf</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><metcalf@lcs.mit.edu></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Ian Murdock</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><imurdock@debian.org></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>David C. Niemi</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><niemidc@clark.net></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Daniel Quinlan</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><quinlan@pathname.com></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Eric S. Raymond</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><esr@thyrsus.com></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
>Rusty Russell</TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
><rusty@rustcorp.com.au></TD
></TR