The root directory is the topmost directory in a computer’s file system, containing subdirectories. The term “home directory” is not accurate for Unix-like systems, and Windows has multiple root directories. Absolute and relative paths are used to locate files within directories.
A root directory is the topmost directory in your computer’s file systems. It is sometimes referred to as the parent directory or home directory. In can contain many other directories or subdirectories.
The term “home directory” is not an entirely accurate reference to the root directory when referring to Unix or Unix-like computer file systems, such as the many distributions or variants of the Linux operating system. There are some Linux distributions developed to be used primarily by a single user who always works as the root or master user. Puppy Linux is an example of such a system. Most distributions, however, have been developed for a production environment of multiple users, each with their own home directory. Individual home directories are not root directories in the same sense as the topmost directory in the computer’s hierarchical file systems.
The root directory in the Microsoft (MS) Windows® operating system is different from that of a Linux distribution. Each partition is assigned a letter of the alphabet under MS Windows. For example, the local disk where the operating system is installed would be designated as C: which is called the root directory for that specific partition. Optical drives such as compact discs (CDs) and digital versatile discs (DVDs) are usually designated as D: or E:. These are the root directories for those specific drives. Each is a root directory that can contain any number of subdirectories, so it can be said that there is more than one root directory in Windows.
Unix and Unix-based operating systems, such as the various distributions of Linux, use a hierarchical file system in which the topmost directory is indicated by a simple backslash; it is the only real topmost directory. All files and subdirectories are relative to the root directory regardless of which operating system you are using. Sometimes the terms “working directory”, “relative” and “absolute path” are used when specifying the exact location of a particular file. A file’s relative path is actually relative to another location; for example, a file in a subdirectory is relative to the parent directory in which that subdirectory is located. When pointing to files in a subdirectory, it is usually sufficient to indicate the relative path, not the absolute one.
There are times when it is necessary to indicate the absolute path to a file, which requires knowing what the root directory is. The working directory is a term often used to refer to the exact directory or location in which a user is currently working. Directories can be thought of as electronic manila folders where various files are kept, but unlike physical manila folders where other folders are rarely placed, an electronic root directory can contain multiple folders known as subdirectories.
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