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I tried to look for a full list, which shows, what belongs to which category in the file system. So far all articles I found seemed to be not complete. That's, what I have so far:

bin  => programs
boot => programs + data?
dev  => neither
etc  => data
home => data
lib  => programs
lost+found => neither/both
misc => ?
mnt  => from current root perspective data
net  => like mnt
opt  => should be programs (and data, if the programming wasn't done well)
proc => neither
sbin => programs
tmp  => data
usr  => seems to be mixed?
var  => mixed also?

My problem is especially with usr and var. Can the subfolders be divided into programs and data? var contains var/lib, which should be programs. var/log on the other hand is definitely data. In usr, I expect usr/bin to be programs, but usr/share to be data.

MaestroGlanz
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  • Why does it matter? And why the arbitrary distinction between programs and data? And why only on the root level? As a rule of thumb, binaries (programs) will be in: /bin, /opt/bin, /sbin or /usr/bin. – Artur Meinild Sep 14 '21 at 10:29
  • @ArturMeinild Because I want to cleanly backup all data from my existing system. – MaestroGlanz Sep 14 '21 at 10:32
  • Problem is, the structure is not so clear cut - neither on the root level, or whether you consider "binaries" as programs or data. Instead, you should rather focus on what data you want to backup, and locate that. – Artur Meinild Sep 14 '21 at 10:36
  • @ArturMeinild That is not the response I hoped for, but the one I expected or at least I'm not surprised. – MaestroGlanz Sep 14 '21 at 11:07
  • You have a good handle on where data should be stored. But there is little consequence if a developer ignores those guidelines; there is no Linux Police with enforcement power over everybody. I've seen applications ignore those guidelines and throw data into weird places. @ArturMeinild's guidance to check the actual locations of the data you want to preserve is sound and sensible guidance. – user535733 Sep 14 '21 at 12:59

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