Navigating Your File System in Linux
- List Files and Folders
- List the Contents of Other Folders
- List Folder Contents Using Wildcards
- View a List of Files in Subfolders
- View a List of Contents in a Single Column
- View Contents As a Comma-Separated List
- View Hidden Files and Folders
- Visually Display a File's Type
- Display Contents in Color
- List Permissions, Ownership, and More
- Reverse the Order Contents Are Listed
- Sort Contents by Date and Time
- Sort Contents by Size
- Express File Sizes in Terms of K, M, and G
- Display the Path of Your Current Directory
- Change to a Different Directory
- Change to Your Home Directory
- Change to Your Previous Directory
- Conclusion
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter introduces the basic commands you’ll find yourself using several times every day. Think of these as the hammer, screwdriver, and pliers that a carpenter keeps in the top of his toolbox. After you learn these commands, you can start controlling your shell and finding out all sorts of interesting things about your files, folders, data, and environment. In particular, you’ll be learning about some of the metadata—the data describing your data—that Linux has to keep track of, and it may just surprise you how much there is.
List Files and Folders
lsThe ls command is probably the one that people find themselves using the most. After all, before you can manipulate and use files in a directory (remember, file and directory are interchangeable), you first have to know what files are available. That’s where ls comes in, as it lists the files and subdirectories found in a directory.
Typing ls lists the contents of the directory in which you’re currently working. When you first log in to your shell, you’ll find yourself in your home directory. Enter ls, and you might see something like the following:
$ ls alias Desktop iso pictures program_files todo bin documents music podcasts src videos