In this lesson, you will learn how to navigate the file system, create folders, and check disk usage on a Linux/Unix system. We will cover essential commands such as pwd, ls, cd, find, mkdir, rmdir, df, du, and free.

Navigating the File System

pwd (Print Working Directory)

The pwd command displays the full path of your current working directory. It helps you identify your current location in the file system.

pwd

ls and ll (List)

The ls command is used to list the contents of a directory. By default, it displays the names of files and directories in your current directory.

ls

The ll command (or ls -l) provides a detailed listing that includes file permissions, ownership, file size, and modification dates.

ll

cd (Change Directory)

The cd command is used to change your current working directory. You can navigate to a specific directory by providing its path as an argument.

cd /path/to/directory

find (Find Files and Directories)

The find command is used to search for files and directories within a specified location. You can search based on various criteria such as name, type, and modification time.

find /path/to/search -name "filename"

If your search is returning a ton of permission denied errors, it's because your search includes files or directories for which you do not have permissions. Sometimes, this can cause an issue because the file is located, but it is lost in the output because of all the surrounding permission denied errors. To fix this, you can hide the permission denied errors by redirecting your error output to /dev/null:

find / -name "important.conf" 2>/dev/null

You can learn more about output redirection here.

Creating Folders

mkdir (Make Directory)

The mkdir command is used to create new directories (folders) in the file system. You provide the directory name as an argument.

mkdir new_directory

rmdir (Remove Directory)

The rmdir command is used to remove empty directories from the file system.

rmdir empty_directory

Checking Disk Usage

df (Disk Free)

The df command displays information about disk space usage on your system, including the capacity, used space, and available space for mounted filesystems.

df -h

du (Disk Usage)

The du command is used to estimate file and directory space usage. It provides a summary of disk space consumption for a specific location.

du -sh /path/to/directory

This is all we need to cover in this lesson. See you in the next one!

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