So far in your exploration of Linux, you've seen several basic text files and several directories or folders. Now we're going to expand our horizons to include other types of Linux files. For example, the /bin directory in the standard Linux file system contains another type of file, called an executable file. Executable files can be programs, commands, or scriptstools and applications that you tell the computer to run, often from the command line, to get things done. You can use the ls command to view the contents of the /bin directory: [you@workstation20 ~]$ ls /bin arch dnsdomainname gzip more rview traceroute6 awk doexec hostname mount sed true [...] df gtar mknod rpm tracepath6 dmesg gunzip mktemp rvi [you@workstation20 ~]$ The files in this directory are coded in several colors, including blue and a light blue known as cyan. Files listed in blue are executable files. (You learn more about the cyan files, called symbolic links, in the next section of this chapter.)
If you look carefully, you might notice that this particular directory, /bin, contains many of the commands you've been using. The commands cp, ls, mkdir, mv, pwd, rm, rmdir, and touch are all stored in the /bin directory. They are all actually Linux programs that are themselves started by the shell every time you enter them as commands. Linux uses these commands to accomplish the work you've been requesting of the system. Every program, application, tool, or command that you use in Linux exists as an executable program file stored somewhere in the Linux file system. Every time you use such a program or call such a command, Linux loads the executable file, which contains instructions and program code, and runs it. |