I’ve just started my Linux journey earlier this year. As a goal to learn how to self-host applications and services that will allow me to take back some control of my data. Immich instead of Google Photos, for example.
I have a local server running Unraid and 22 docker containers now. And then a VPS (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) running two apps. I’ve learned a ton but one thing I can’t seem to wrap my brain around is navigation through the file structure using only terminal. My crutch has been to open a SFTP session in Cyberduck to the same device I’m SSH’d to and try to figure things out that way. I know enough to change directories, make directories, using Tree to show the file structure at different levels of depth. But I feel like I’m missing some efficient way to find my way to files and folders I need to get to. Or are y’all just memorizing it and know where everything is by now?
I come from a Windows background and even then I sometimes catch myself checking via explorer where a directory is instead of using CMD or PowerShell to find it.
I’d love to hear any tips or tricks!
EDIT: I’ve been using Termius because they have a great Android client, but I wasn’t about to pay $5/mo for sync. Especially to sync to someone else’s cloud. Which led me to Tabby, which I understand has quite a large footprint resource-wise. But I guess I either don’t know enough yet to be mad about it or it hasn’t impacted any of my systems negatively yet. No Android client though, but you can bring your own sync solution and it has a handy little shortcut to SFTP to the current directory you’re in. Between that and stuff like ranger, it’s made it so much easier to learn my way around!
I tend to use walk or midnight commander. zoxide is nice as well. It also helps to have bash aliases. https://github.com/antonmedv/walk
https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide https://midnight-commander.org/ https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/linux-commands
Hi I use Ranger in BASH terminal a lot, let me weigh in on how very useful it is and how easy to customize to my needs it has been. There is a similar app written in C++ But I couldn’t script it as easy. Until I found Ranger I also used MC as my workhorse.
mcis killer. All the features of a desktop file manager but in your terminal!
pushd and popd may be useful
Use the fish shell… No, seriously it’s autocomplete and tab functionality makes browsing directories through the terminal so much easier
lol, their website is delightfully retro. Only thing missing is a random GIF that has no context, just there to grab attention. https://fishshell.com/
Not to be “that guy”, but you can use a gui file manager to access your files the same way you do so in windows. Most of them support ssh keys as well. If you’d like to check out the cli stuff, nnn or ranger can be useful. Something like midnight as abckup is good too. Definitely install fzf on both your vps and local machine. You can also go over board and run xorg over ssh and run a small window manager, maybe awesomewm or even xfce (not that small but works fine).
I was speaking more towards my VPS , which of course has no OS GUI. In Unraid I do use the very nice GUI regularly though.
Midnight commander is a pretty nice alternative!
There are tools like sshfs that let you mount remote directories as if they’re local. Most of the time I tend to use nnn with some of the little extra bits you can find in the docs like cd to last directory on quit and multi-colored tabs etc.
Not strictly file browsing advice, but you can quickly search for previously issued commands by hitting ctrl-r and starting to type. (and you can press it again to search further back)
Damn, that is incredibly useful. Thanks!
Also check https://github.com/junegunn/fzf and https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide
Two great utilities that will reduce the number of file jumping and searching you need to do. :)
More useful tools: https://zaiste.net/posts/shell-commands-rust/
Can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before, thanks for the tip!
Another person saved from hitting up 50 times
Often I don’t find myself navigating directories when I reach for my file manager, but looking for something. Learning to use find or fzf gets rid of a fair amount of shuffling through your file system. Also, don’t be afraid to type out full paths when performing copy or move commands. There isn’t any reason to go to
/home/documents/12/directories/deep when you can simply put the path in your ls or other command. And of course, tab complete is your friend (/ho[tab}/doc[tab]/12/[tab]/deep, etc…)i have broot, an interactive tree
Depends on your workflow and file structure, but nvim with nvchad works great for coding. I also sometimes use ranger to better see file structures.
I am old and I like ‘mc’ (Midnight Commander) a lot when doing many/complex file operations
Reminder that mc has the ability to make directory bookmarks (Ctrl + /).
Same, as I used Norton Commander under DOS, good memory!
I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. I had the same issue at first and the more I used the command line, the more I started to prefer it to GUI apps for certain tasks.
A couple things that I use all the time:
- tab completion is incredible
cd -goes back to the last directory you were in (useful for bouncing back and forth between locations)!$means the last argument. So if youls ~/Downloadsand then decide you want to go there, you cancd !$.:hremoves the last piece of a path. So I can dovim /etc/network/interfacesand thencd !$:hwill take me to/etc/network.
I’ve used the
cd -several times, it is very handy. the others are new to me so I’ll check it out.I might be wrong here, but “cd” without any arguments works as “cd -” for me.
cdwithout arguments takes you to$HOME, so it’s the same ascd ~interesting, that’s equivalent to
cd ~for me
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Fascinating—I didn’t know that one! I’m definitely going to have to read the manual for that.
!$ means the last argument. So if you ls ~/Downloads and then decide you want to go there, you can cd !$.
Nice, I usually do !!:n. This is a lot better.
Nothing like extremely cryptic shell scripts
I don’t use it in scripts, only when typing.
Fair enough… i’ll have to test it out
Besides using
!$,alt+.on bash copies the last argument into the line you are typing, which might be better if you want to edit it.deleted by creator
Not sure if you just misread the commands or not, but that’s a pretty different usecase than what they’re describing.
Look into your shell’s tab completion abilities, the find command, and fzf. There’s also stuff like midnight commander but I find that to be a little overkill for my tastes.
On my personal computer, zoxide, fzf, fzf tab completion allow me to jump around anywhere quite easily, I still use exa/cd for the most part. Look into this if you need more visualization. I still use a GUI file browser from time to time.
Oh my server though, I still use the default shell, so yes I just memorize where things are. But a trick is to allow for a large history file, and I use the command history search (Ctrl-R) because I tend to run the same things constantly. My setup helps too, I run things in docker, and have a
dataand aconfigdirectory, things go into each accordingly, and I bind mount those directories instead of using volumes.If you edit config files a lot, in vim or nvim,
:bro oldwill give you a list of files you recently edited and you can jump to them by inputting a number.https://github.com/agkozak/zsh-z
Any directory in the filesystem is less than 5 key presses away
You can quickly display the filesystem hierarchy using the
treecommand.Yeah I’ve been messing with that. I like that you can limit how deep you want to go, like if you just want to see folders but not the files within, for example.
I’m surprised I didn’t see fasd fasd (pronounced ‘fast’) uses ‘frecency’ (frequency + recently) in order to jump to or open your most frecent documents or directories. A dumber version is z which works as a supliment to cd
