/usr/local
In this directory the system administrator can install local, distribution-independent
extensions.
/usr/share/doc
Holds various documentation les and the release notes for your system. In the
manual subdirectory nd an online version of this manual. If more than one lan-
guage is installed, this directory may contain versions of the manuals for dierent
languages.
Under packages nd the documentation included in the software packages installed
on your system. For every package, a subdirectory /usr/share/doc/
packages/
packagename
is created that often holds README les for the package
and sometimes examples, conguration les or additional scripts.
If HOWTOs are installed on your system /usr/share/doc also holds the howto
subdirectory in which to nd additional documentation on many tasks related to
the setup and operation of Linux software.
/var
Whereas /usr holds static, read-only data, /var is for data which is written during
system operation and thus is variable data, such as log les or spooling data. For
an overview of the most important log les you can nd under /var/log/, refer
to Table 9.1, “Log Files” (page 129).
/windows
Only available if you have both Microsoft Windows and Linux installed on your
system. Contains the Windows data available on the Windows partition of your
system. Whether you can edit the data in this directory depends on the le system
your Windows partition uses. If it is FAT32, you can open and edit the les in this
directory. For NTFS, openSUSE also includes write access support. However, the
driver for the NTFS-3g le system has limited functionality. Learn more in Sec-
tion “Accessing Files on Dierent OS on the Same Computer” (Chapter 34,
Copying and Sharing Files, ↑Reference).
6.3 File Access Permissions
In Linux, objects such as les or folders or processes generally belong to the user
who created or initiated them. There are some exceptions to this rule. For more in-
formation about the exceptions, refer to Chapter 10, Access Control Lists in Linux
(↑Security Guide). The group which is associated with a le or a folder depends on
the primary group the user belongs to when creating the object.
When you create a new le or directory, initial access permissions for this object are
set according to a predened scheme. As an owner of a le or directory, you can
change the access permissions for this object. For example, you can protect les
holding sensitive data against read access by other users and you can authorize the
members of your group or other users to write, read, or execute several of your les
where appropriate. As root, you can also change the ownership of les or folders.
Basic Concepts 81
