/etc is an abbreviation for etcetera, as I’m sure you guessed… It’s the directory which stores all of your configuration files. /usr , as you guessed, is the directory where “user” files reside; it contains all of the items that are not part of the system itself such as user programs and data.

What is the etc folder in Ubuntu?

The /etc directory contains configuration files, which can generally be edited by hand in a text editor. Note that the /etc/ directory contains system-wide configuration files — user-specific configuration files are located in each user’s home directory.

What is etc Linux?

The /etc (et-see) directory is where a Linux system’s configuration files live. A large number of files (over 200) appear on your screen. You’ve successfully listed the contents of the /etc directory, but you can actually list files in several different ways.