# /bin
**/bin** is the directory for essential user-facing command binaries that must be available before any other filesystem is mounted. It contains the tools needed to boot the system, enter single-user mode, and recover from a broken install: `sh`, `ls`, `cp`, `mv`, `cat`, `mkdir`, `rm`, `mount`, and a few dozen others. The constraint is that `/bin` lives on the root filesystem, so it is accessible even if `/usr` or `/home` are on separate partitions that have not yet been mounted.

```
/bin/sh       /bin/bash     /bin/ls       /bin/cp
/bin/mv       /bin/rm       /bin/cat      /bin/mkdir
/bin/mount    /bin/umount   /bin/grep     /bin/sed
```

On most modern Linux distributions following the **merged `/usr`** scheme, `/bin` is a symbolic link to `/usr/bin`. The distinction between what belongs in `/bin` versus `/usr/bin` was historically about what was needed before `/usr` could be mounted from a network share; that constraint rarely applies today. The symlink preserves compatibility with scripts that hardcode `/bin/sh` or `/bin/ls` while consolidating all binaries under `/usr`.