The Different between android folders(bin, xbin, sbin)

Question

I've noticed that I have some directories inside my android phone which look the same.

What the different between /sbin, /system/sbin, /system/bin, /system/xbin?

Answer 1

1. /system is the main Android directory for storing immutable components generated by the build of the AOSP. This includes native binaries, native libraries, framework packages , and stock apps. It's usually mounted read-only from a separate image from the root file system, which is itself mounted from a RAM disk image.

2. Android also includes many directories commonly found in any Linux system, such as /dev , /proc , /sys , /sbin , /root , /mnt , and /etc . These directories often serve similar if not identical purposes to the ones they serve on any Linux system, although they are very often trimmed down, as is the case of /sbin and /etc , and in some cases are empty, such as /root .

3. More than 150 command-line utilities are scattered throughout Android's root file system. /system/bin contains the majority of them, but some “extras” are in /system/xbin , and a handful are in /sbin .

4. /sbin : In Linux, this would hold binaries essential to the system administrator. In Android , it contains only ueventd and adbd .

5. /bin : All native binaries and daemons built as part of the AOSP. All modules built with BUILD_EXECUTABLE are here. The only exception is adbd, which has the LOCAL_MODULE_PATH set to /sbin and is therefore installed there instead.

6. /xbin : “Extra” binaries generated by some of the packages that are built within the AOSP but aren't essential to the system's operation.

Thanks goes to Mr: Karim Yaghmour , The great ; The author of Embedded Android tutorial.