We have seen the differences between files under DOS/Win and Linux. As for
directories, under DOS/Win the root directory is \, under Linux
it is /. Similarly, nested directories are separated by \
under DOS/Win, by / under Linux. Example of file paths:
As usual, .. is the parent directory and . is the current
directory. Remember that the system won't let you cd, rd,
or md everywhere you want. Each user has his or her stuff in a
directory called `home', given by the system administrator; for instance, on
my PC my home dir is /home/guido.
Directories, too, have permissions. What we have seen in Section
Permissions and Ownership applies to directories as
well (user, group, and other). For a directory, rx means you can
cd to that directory, and w means that you can delete a
file in the directory (according to the file's permissions, of course), or
the directory itself.
For example, to prevent other users from snooping in
/home/guido/text:
DOS Linux
---------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\GUIDO>DIR $ ls
C:\GUIDO>DIR FILE.TXT $ ls file.txt
C:\GUIDO>DIR *.H *.C $ ls *.h *.c
C:\GUIDO>DIR/P $ ls | more
C:\GUIDO>DIR/A $ ls -l
C:\GUIDO>DIR *.TMP /S $ find / -name "*.tmp"
C:\GUIDO>CD $ pwd
n/a - see note $ cd
ditto $ cd ~
ditto $ cd ~/temp
C:\GUIDO>CD \OTHER $ cd /other
C:\GUIDO>CD ..\TEMP\TRASH $ cd ../temp/trash
C:\GUIDO>MD NEWPROGS $ mkdir newprogs
C:\GUIDO>MOVE PROG .. $ mv prog ..
C:\GUIDO>MD \PROGS\TURBO $ mkdir /progs/turbo
C:\GUIDO>DELTREE TEMP\TRASH $ rm -rf temp/trash
C:\GUIDO>RD NEWPROGS $ rmdir newprogs
C:\GUIDO>RD \PROGS\TURBO $ rmdir /progs/turbo
Notes:
when using rmdir, the directory to remove must be empty. To
delete a directory and all of its contents, use rm -rf (at your own
risk).
the character `~' is a shortcut for the name of your
home directory. The commands cd or cd ~ will take you to
your home directory from wherever you are; the command cd ~/tmp
will take you to /home/your_home/tmp.