Where Binary Files are stored

Executable files live in directories hanging ultimately from /. More specifically, programs are distributed across a three-tier structure: the first tier / includes programs that can be necessary in single-user mode, the second tier /user contains most multi-super programs and the third tier /usr/local is used to store software that is not provided by the distribution and has been compiled locally.

/sbin It contains essential binaries for system administration such as parted or ip.

/bin It contains essential binaries for all users such as ls, mv, or mkdir

/usr/sbin It stores binaries for system administration such as deluser, or groupadd.

/usr/bin It includes most executable files - such as free, pstree, sudo or man - that can be used by all users.

/usr/local/sbin It is used to store locally installed programs for system administration that are not managed by the system's package manager.

/usr/local/sbin It serves the same purpose as /usr/local/sbin but for regular user programs.

Recently some distributions started to replace /bin and /sbin with symbolic links to /usr/bin and /usr/sbin.