I’m kinda a newbie to linux (…going on 20 years now, slow learner). I recently came across tldr and don’t know how I lived without it, because man pages can be a little much for a non technical person.
Is there a helpfile / command to learn the purpose of the current root directory you are in? I’ve been reading a few books on Linux at the library, and everything about it kinda fascinates me, and I can’t stop asking questions trying to learn about it…
My current question is what is /etc/skel/ . It’s an empty directory and it has some purpose. Is there a tool to query what the purpose of this directory is? Like whatis . or something like that, for educational purposes; rather than having to web search/“google” it everytime.
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but for an understanding of the general directory structure in Linux, you might want to have a look at the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS 3.0). It defines which directories need to exist and what they are supposed to contain. Also, it’s a rather light read and not awfully technical.
If you want more of a deeper dive, you might want to get a book that can be used in preparation for an LPIC-1-certification, even if you never intend to take the actual test. I found that they do a really good job at teaching not just the user perspective of Linux (type this to do that), but also the reasoning behind why Linux works the way it does.