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Why does the /usr/bin/x11 folder hold another x11 folder and when you open that x11 you get another x11 and then another and another?

I did it about 6 times and got frustrated so I have no idea how deep this goes but

  • What is the purpose (or is it a glich?)?
  • Is this eating disk space more than it should? (I was going to delete one or more but thought I better ask first )

I can see no reason why this should be happening at all.

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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote

/usr/bin/X11/ is a symbolic link (symlink) pointing to /usr/bin/. Hence it contains itself and you can follow those X11 folders all day long but there's still just one on your disk.

This is for compatibility reasons as some programs expect some other program to be in /usr/bin/X11/ but Ubuntu puts them in /usr/bin/.

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yes that was my answer – user91632 Sep 22 '12 at 9:40
Exactly - its a Link to the same directory that the link itself is in. It looks like a paradox but it's not. – fabricator4 Sep 22 '12 at 12:30

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