/: is the ROOT directory and the center of the Linux file system. Unlike Windows, there is only one root directory, no matter how many hard drives or storage devices you have. Every device is mounted somewhere off the root directory.

/bin, /sbin: are directories which contain the various programs and instructions that the operating system itself needs to function. Many of the configuration programs present in the Knoppix graphical environment link directly back to files in these directories.

/dev: contains various subdirectories that represent the hardware devices attached to your system. '/dev/cdrom' is your optical drive, for example. This is a good illustration of how everything, even hardware, becomes a part of the overarching directory tree in Linux.

The /etc: directory and its subdirectories contain assorted text-based configuration files which the operating system uses to govern its behaviour.

/home: generally contains personal directories for each user. In the case of the Knoppix live CD we are using, a single user called 'Knoppix' is created. You can think of the '/home/knoppix' directory as being your 'my documents' folder for all intents and purposes.

/usr: contains various programs and routines that users can run on the system, as well as help documents and even the source code for the Linux kernel itself.

The /mnt: directory is a general repository for all data devices attached to the system. hard drives and other storage devices are generally mounted in subdirectories under /mnt. If you right click any of the hard drive shortcuts on the desktop and select 'properties' then the 'device' tab, you will see that the 'mount point' is listed as /mnt/(device name). This is the directory that the shortcut links to in order to show your files. If you went to the console (command prompt) and navigated to '/mnt/hda1' you would see the contents of your Windows 'c:' drive.