We have seen the differences between files under DOSWin and Linux. As for
directories, under DOSWin the root directory is \, under Linux it
is /. Similarly, nested directories are separated by \
under DOSWin, by / under Linux. Example of file paths:
DOS: C:\PAPERS\GEOLOGY\MID_EOC.TEX
Linux: /home/guido/papers/geology/middle_eocene.tex
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:
$ chmod o-rwx /home/guido/text
DIR: ls, find, du
CD: cd, pwd
MD: mkdir
RD: rmdir
DELTREE: rm -rf
MOVE: mv
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:
rmdir, the directory to remove must be empty. To
delete a directory and all of its contents, use rm -rf (at your own
risk).
~' 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.
cd - ``undoes'' the last cd.