The UNIX filesystem

Files and directories in UNIX and Linux are very different than in Windows. These differences include:

• There are no drive letters in UNIX. The root of the filesystem is / .
• Windows uses backslashes, while UNIX uses forward slashes.
• Windows doesn't mind spaces in filenames but working with spaces in filenames in UNIX can be difficult to use.
• Files in Windows require extensions (.jpg, .txt, etc...) while applications in UNIX do not normally recognize such extensions.
• Windows file and folder names are not case-sensitive, but UNIX files are. The files File1 and file1 are not the same in UNIX.

Examples from Windows:

• C:\
• C:\Program Files\
• C:\Documents and Settings\Joe User\
• C:\Documents and Settings\Joe User\My Documents\My Long File Name.txt

Examples from UNIX:

• /
• /usr/bin/
• /home/juser/
• /home/juser/mylongfilename