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These commands will work with most (if not all) distributions
of Linux as well as most implementations of Unix. They're the
commands that everybody knows. To be able to navigate in
Linux, you should become familiar with these.
File Management
cp
Copying works very much the same. The cp
command can be used just like the MS-DOS
copy command, only remember that directories are
separated with slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\). So a
basic command line is just cp filename1
filename2.
There are other extensions to the cp
command. You can use the -f command to force
it. You can use the -p command to preserve
the permissions.
You can move an entire directory to its new destination.
Let's say you want to copy a directory (and all of its
contents) from where you are to be
/home/jack/newdirectory/. You would type cp
-rpf olddirectory /home/jack/newdirectory. To
issue this command you would have to be in the directory
where the subdirectory "olddirectory" is actually located.
ln
A feature of linking files
is available in Linux. It works by "redirecting" a file to
the actual file. It's referred to as a symbolic
link. Don't confuse this term with the linking of
programs, which is when binary programs are connected with
libraries that they need to load in order to run.
The most simple way that I've ever used ln
to create symbolic links is ln -s existing_file
link. You can also use the -f
flag to force the command line to overwrite anything that
might have the symbolic link's file name already.
To remove a symbolic link, simply type rm
symbolic_link. It won't remove the file that
it's linked to.
mv
The mv command can be used both to move
files and to rename them. The syntax is mv
fileone filetwo, where "fileone" is the
original file ame and "filetwo" will be the new file name.
You can't move a directory that is located in one partition
to another, unfortunately. You can copy it, though, using
cp -rpf, and then remove it with
rm -rf later on. If you have only a
single partition that makes up your filesystem then you have
very little to worry about in this area.
rm
The rm command is used for
removing files. Let's say you want
to remove a file called foobar in your current
directory. To do that, simply type rm
foobar.
A good idea is to have rm aliased to
rm -i so it will act in the same manner as
it does on Wam/Glue accounts.
To delete something in some other directory, use the full
path as the file name. For example, if you want to delete a
file called "windows" that's in the directory
/usr/local/src/, you would type rm
/usr/local/src/windows.
To remove an entire directory and its contents, type
rm -rf /directory where "/directory" is the
path to the directory that you want to delete.
The "rf" stands for "recursive" and "force".
Be very careful with this command, as it can wreak havoc
easily if misused.
Copyright © 1997-1999 Joshua Go
(jtg@computers.iwz.com). All rights reserved. Permission
to use, distribute, and copy this document is hereby granted.
You may modify this document as long as credit to me is
given.
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