What distinguishes 'soft' links from 'hard' links in Linux?

The distinguishing feature of hard links is that they point directly to the inode of a file on the filesystem. An inode is a data structure on the filesystem that stores information about a file, such as its size, owner, and data block locations. When you create a hard link to a file, you are essentially creating an additional directory entry that refers directly to the same inode as the original file. This means that both the original file and the hard link represent the same data; changes made to one will affect the other since they are just different names pointing to the same storage location.

In contrast, soft links (or symbolic links) do not point to the inode itself but rather to a pathname in the filesystem. This means they can point to files or directories and can even link to files across different filesystems, while hard links cannot exist across filesystems because they require direct referential access to an inode.

Considering the other options: soft links can point to both files and directories (not only directories), hard links cannot span different filesystems, and both types of links operate within the filesystem context. Therefore, the choice that highlights the unique aspect of how hard links relate to inodes distinctly defines their behavior relative to soft links.