Navigating Through Linux System
Here we are in our clinic's machine, and it is time we finally learn how to use that mysterious tool that is said to be the most important tool that we must master.
don't worry, the terminal is not difficult to use.
ut before we get to open it and run a bunch of the commands, let us first define what a terminal is. Terminal is a program that allows us to interact with Linux operating system using different commands, we can create files, delete files, create directories, run programs, set different tasks to execute, and we can do many more things using it.
You must get used to it, especially if you never used it before, because if you're coming from Windows or Mac OS, you probably are used to opening files or folders by clicking on different icons and navigating like that.
For example, on Windows, we usually open files by double-clicking on an icon and it will open that folder.
nd on Linux, we can actually do the same thing, so if we go right here and for example, I want to open this home folder, I will double click on that folder and it will open the folder with all the files inside of it.
ut we don't want to be doing it like that. Let us see how we can do it using the terminal. So let us close this first and we already know how to open the terminal. Right.
lick on desktop and click open terminal here.
The first thing that we notice is the username that we have right here and the hostname that we have right here, but we also noticed this slash desktop.
his means that our terminal process has opened inside of the desktop directory. Does it always open there?
If you want this article in a video format con me on the contact page.
ope, it only opened there because we told it to open there. Remember, we. Right.
licked on the desktop and clicked open terminal here. If we, for example, went to the home folder. And right, click here, open terminal.
mm, it doesn't say home like it did on the desktop.
t just gives us this way.
e minus sign.
ell, that sign in Linux means that you are in your home directory of your user and our user is called
r. Hacker.
o the director, a name should be at home.
r. Hacker.
nd to check the directory name, we can type the command P.
.D. If we press enter, it will give us the current directory in which our terminal process is running
nd it is home.
r. Hacker.
nd this simply stands for print working directory.
f we, for example, go to the folder once again, which is your home folder.
r. Hacker.
nd we double click on documents, try to open terminal here.
o open terminal here.
his will open a second terminal and you will see right here that it says documents, but do we always
need to go to that folder and open the terminal inside of that folder for it to be inside of this directory?
f course not.
e can use a command called KDDI.
nd you should be familiar with this command, since we already used it before.
let us test it out.
et goes to the documents directly from our home directory, so we'll just close the second terminal
nd wait here we are inside of our home directory or slash home slash, Mr. Hacker.
e know that inside of this directory, there is a documents directory since we managed to open it right
ere and to navigate to this directory using a terminal, we can use the command CD and then the name
f the directory, which is documents.
e press enter, and here it is, we are in the documents directory, if we type here, it will tell us the current working directory slash home slash Mr. Hacker slash documents.
nd for example, if he wanted to go one step or one directory back, if we can type documents, CD
nd then two dots.
hat this command will do is it will go one directory back, and if I typed up once again, we will
ow be again in slash home slash Mr. Hacker directory.
o these two dots tell the terminal to go one directory back.
K, great, but how can we know which subdirectories and files are in the home directory?
or example, if we knew some documents are directly in the folder because we opened it right
ere, we didn't open it over terminal.
e opened it right here from our desktop.
once we open it again, we can see all the folders and files inside of this home.
r. Hacker's directory, but we didn't see these files inside of our terminal, so how can we lose them?
ow can we see all of these files using a terminal so we know which directories are available inside
f this home?
r. Hacker directory to check files and folders in any directory we can use another familiar command,
which is Altez.
nd the command stands for the list, so let's just test it out.
f we type it, press enter, here we are, we can see some folders and same files that we can see inside
f this window right here.
o what we did for now is we use a terminal instead of clicking on a bunch of files, a bunch of icons,
e now are doing all of that with our terminal.
ow that we know which folders are in this directory, if we can choose which folder we want to go to
nd use the command to go there.
ut let us go one directory back from this flash home slash, Mr. Hacker, to do that, we already know
e can type CD and then to that's.
nd by the way, the CD simply stands for Changing Directory. Don't know if I mentioned that, but CD is changing the directory. And now we can see once we went one directly back, we are in the home directory. If we type here.
e can see here is our Mr. Hacker directory that is containing these files right here.
since we went one step back, we can only see Mr. Hacker directory since this is the only folder inside
f this home directory.
et's go one more step back.
f I type two dots once again, now I'm in the directory and it is called slash directory because it
s only specified as a Forbert slash.
nd we can go more than that.
his is the main directory that has all of the other files and directories in the system if we try to
type code once again.
ou will see it will still be in this directory and remember when I told you during Callisthenicsinstallation
hat we will shortly see slash home slash tampoe slash VA directories that occurred in one of the installation
questions?
ell, if I type s right here.
these are all just standard business directories and here is the home from which we came from.
ere is Mark.
nd here is the MP.
nd a bunch of other directories, and these are all just standard Linux directories. From here, you will notice that not all of it is the same color.
his is because not all of the stuff we see here is the same thing, something is a directory, something
s a file, and for example, we cannot use CD comment onto a file. We can only use it to go to another directory. So if we try, for example, CD. And I chose this file, so in it.
and thought IMG and press enter.
his will not work, it will give us an error saying not to directory.
ut if a type CD and then at sea, for example, which is this directory and press enter now, I will
e inside the ETSI directory and here I can type Altez to list all of the files inside of the ETSIdirectory.
nd you will also notice that here we got a mixture of files and directories as well. Directories are these dark blue names.
hile files can be other colors depending on the file type. Usually, they are white.
K, great.
e learned the basics of navigating through the system and directories, using different commands.
ow, before we finish this video, here is a practice test.
try returning to the desktop directory from this Etsy directory, using only the comments that
e learned.
will give you right now a few seconds and I will show you how to do it.
o try it out.
K, don't worry, if you didn't get it, this will come with practice.
o here it is, how we can do it.
rom the ATSE directory, we know that we must go back to the directory, and in this directory we got
ur home directory, we can check it out by typing Altez And inside of this home directory, we know
hat we got the Mr. Hacker directory and the Mr. Hacker directory has the desktop directory.
o to navigate there, we can type CD home.
ere then type CD, Mr. Hacker type here once again to check out all of the available directories and
ee the desktop.
nd now we are on our test of the rectory once again, great, so practice a little bit with these commands.
his is nothing really too hard.
just take some practice and you will get used to it pretty soon.
nd in the next video, we're going to see how we can create files and folders using terminals well
s we are going to see how we can run programs.
ee you there.
