usrshare

usrshare refers to the /usr/share directory in Unix-like operating systems. It contains architecture-independent data used by installed software, such as documentation, locale information, icons, and other resources that do not depend on the system’s CPU architecture. The data here is intended to be shared among multiple packages and installed programs, rather than being specific to a single binary.

Common contents and subdirectories include:

/usr/share/doc for software documentation

/usr/share/man for manual pages

/usr/share/info for GNU info documents

/usr/share/locale and related subdirectories for localization data

/usr/share/icons and /usr/share/fonts for graphical resources

/usr/share/mime for MIME type definitions

/usr/share/examples for sample data and configurations

Usage and management: Package managers typically install and manage files under /usr/share. Because the data is architecture-independent, it can be shared and reused across different packages and system components. On many systems, /usr/share is treated as a read-only portion of the filesystem to protect resources during updates, while user-specific data resides in ~/.local/share.

Relationship to the broader filesystem: Historically, /usr and its contents could be mounted separately from the root filesystem. Even when /usr is part of the same filesystem as /. The /usr/share directory remains the conventional location for portable, architecture-agnostic data that applications need at runtime, facilitating consistency and reuse across installed software.