How does the directory struction work on the workstations?

School of Statistics, University of Minnesota

The School of Statistics' Hewlett-Packard workstations have a simple directory structure associated with them. Within this structure, you will be able to find all the software and utilities supported by the School.

Directory Structure

/HOME

/HOME is the location for nearly of the user accounts on the School of Statistics machines. The directory is subdivided into several categories such as /HOME/staff, /HOME/faculty and /HOME/grads. All personal accounts fall below these directories.

/usr/local/bin

This is the main directory that holds all of the local software for our systems. In here, and in the subdirectories that fall underneath it, you will find software like LaTeX, gcc, many X utilities, etc.

Not every directory will be in your default search path and as new package utilities are added, new directories will be added. Some may be automatically added to the default search trees, but if you have customized your own set up, you may no longer be using the default files. From time to time, you may want to look at /usr/local/bin and take a look at what directories happen to be there and see if any of it is useful to you.

/tmp

This is a system-only directory for the creation and use of temporary files. It is mentioned here, because it is also usable by the online users for temporary and scratch files during complation or program execution. However, all users must be aware that the /tmp directory is cleaned out automatically on a daily basis. Nothing stored here will be preserved. If you put something important here, find a new place for it.