draft.sgml

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<book>
<bookinfo>
<title>Filesystem Hierarchy Standard</title>
<authorgroup>
<corpauthor>Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Group</corpauthor>
<editor><firstname>Rusty</firstname><surname>Russell</surname></editor>
<editor><firstname>Daniel</firstname><surname>Quinlan</surname></editor>
</authorgroup>
<copyright><year>1994-2001</year><holder>Daniel Quinlan</holder></copyright>
<copyright><year>2001</year><holder>Paul 'Rusty' Russell</holder></copyright>

<legalnotice>

<para>All trademarks and copyrights are owned by their owners, unless
specifically noted otherwise.  Use of a term in this document should not
be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service
mark.</para>

<para>Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
this standard provided the copyright and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.</para> 

<para>Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
standard under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that
the title page is labeled as modified including a reference to the
original standard, provided that information on retrieving the original
standard is included, and provided that the entire resulting derived
work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to
this one.</para>

<para>Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
standard into another language, under the above conditions for modified
versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a
translation approved by the copyright holder.</para>

</legalnotice>

<abstract>
<para>This standard consists of a set of requirements and guidelines for file
and directory placement under UNIX-like operating systems.  The
guidelines are intended to support interoperability of applications,
system administration tools, development tools, and scripts as well as
greater uniformity of documentation for these systems.</para>
</abstract>


</bookinfo>

<chapter id='introduction'><title>Introduction</title>

<sect1 id='purpose'><title>Purpose</title>

<para>This standard enables</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Software to predict the location of installed files and directories, and</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Users to predict the location of installed files and directories.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>We do this by</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Specifying guiding principles for each area of the filesystem,</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Specifying the minimum files and directories required,</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Enumerating exceptions to the principles, and</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Enumerating specific cases where there has been historical conflict.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>The FHS document is used by</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Independent software suppliers to create applications which are FHS
compliant, and work with distributions which are FHS complaint,</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>OS creators to provide systems which are FHS compliant, and</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Users to understand and maintain the FHS compliance of a system.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>

<sect1 id='conventions'><title>Conventions</title>

<para>We recommend that you read a typeset version of this document rather
than the plain text version.  In the typeset version, the names of files
and directories are displayed in a constant-width font.</para>

<para>Components of filenames that vary are represented by a description
of the contents enclosed in "<emphasis remap='CW'>&lt;</emphasis>" and
"<emphasis remap='CW'>&gt;</emphasis>" characters, <emphasis
remap='CW'>&lt;thus&gt;</emphasis>.  Electronic mail addresses are also
enclosed in "&lt;" and "&gt;" but are shown in the usual
typeface.</para>

<para>Optional components of filenames are enclosed in
"<emphasis>[</emphasis>" and "<emphasis>]</emphasis>" characters and may
be combined with the "<emphasis>&lt;</emphasis>" and
"<emphasis>&gt;</emphasis>" convention.  For example, if a filename is
allowed to occur either with or without an extension, it might be
represented by
<emphasis>&lt;filename&gt;[.&lt;extension&gt;]</emphasis>.</para>

<para>Variable substrings of directory names and filenames are indicated
by "<emphasis>*</emphasis>".</para>

</sect1>

</chapter>
</book>