It appears you can put all you need in /bin so why do we bother with the /usr/bin directory?
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This is perfectly reasonable question for SO; the fact that two close votes choose two different alternative sites is indicative of something. – Jonathan Leffler Sep 06 '10 at 03:29
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This is an excellent question. – Matt Joiner Sep 06 '10 at 03:38
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Where are the close votes depicted? – Milktrader Sep 06 '10 at 03:47
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You need 3k rep to vote and view http://stackoverflow.com/faq – Matt Joiner Sep 06 '10 at 10:26
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/bin is supposed to reside on the root filesystem, whereas /usr may be an alternate filesystem - even network mounted (multiple boxes sharing the same /usr).
This means that any essential basic utilities you need to bring up the system and mount filesystems, including troubleshooting, should live in /bin. Everything non-essential can go in /usr.
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Ah, now it's clear. I knew that it was not for naught that such a design was conceived. – Milktrader Sep 06 '10 at 03:42
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http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE3 for /bin and http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#PURPOSE18 for /usr. – Jack Kelly Sep 07 '10 at 03:42