Working with Files and Directories 88 Getting Started Guide slash “/”. Devices are “mounted” into this file system, so instead of accessing a floppy diskette as drive A:, it might be accessed as /mnt/floppy. Most of this detail is hidden in the graphical dialogs, however, as you start working with files. As you learned in Part 1, you must log in to Linux before you can do anything else. Each user account on your Linux system includes a home directory, where your personal files and configuration information are stored. You can see and access some additional files on the Linux system, but you have complete control over the files in your home directory. Home directories are stored in the /home subdirectory, with a subdirectory for each user. For example, if your regular username is jsmith, your home directory is /home/jsmith. The next section shows you how to quickly open a file manager window to view your home directory. NOTE: The root user has a separate home directory located at /root, but because you’re rarely logged in as root, you’ll never really store anything in that special home directory. Using Files in Linux Working with files and directories in Linux is different in many ways from other operating system you may have used. The following list highlights differences you should remember as you work in Linux: • All filenames and directory names are case sensitive (Report, report and REPORT are three different files, so be careful how you name things). • Subdirectories in a path are separated by a forward slash. • The backward slash used by DOS and Windows has a different, special meaning in Linux. Always use the forward slash if you have to type in the directory path to a file. • Never enter a drive letter; Linux doesn’t use them. Instead, you must know where in the file system to access a device or network resource. • Linux uses long filenames, including spaces (when the name is enclosed in quotation marks). No restrictions of eight characters and a three charac- ter file extension (8.3 DOS format) ever apply. • Linux can access many types of file systems, including hard disks format- ted for Windows95, OS/2, UNIX and other systems. When you look at the root of the file system (indicated by the path “/”), you see many subdirectories. Most of these subdirectories store Linux system files that