When you log into the system and reach the shell command prompt, you are usually placed in your home
directory like this.
Often you will want to explore other areas in the Linux system besides just your home directory, of
course.
So this lecture you will learn how to do that using the shell commands.
To start, you need to take a tour of just the Linux file system looks like.
So you know.
Where are you going?
My name is Stephan and let's get started.
So if you are new to Linux system, you may be confused by how it references files and directories,
especially if you are used to the way that the Microsoft Windows operating system does that.
So before exploring the Linux system, it helps to have an understanding of what's laid out.
So the first difference you will notice in the Linux does not use the drive letters in the path names.
So in Windows world, the partitions on physical drives installed on the computer determine the path
name of the file.
So Windows assigns a letter.
Windows assigns a letter to each physical disk drive partition, and each one contains its own directory
structure for accessing files stored on it.
So for example, Windows, maybe you use the sync files like C drive D drive in Windows and the Windows
file path tells you exactly which physical disk partition contains the file named for example test dot.
The text here to.
T x t here.
So for example, if you save the text dot txt on the flash drive, for example, in this case it's the
flash drive D here the C needed by the letter D, the file path would be like d here and test.
Test dot t x t here.
Let's actually make it look the.
Test.txt.
So this is not the method in the used by Linux, obviously.
So this is just a Windows method that I wanted to show you here.
So the virtual directory contains the file path.
So firstly, the Linux here.
This is the Linux file system.
The Linux file system stores files with a single directory structure here.
So this structure called virtual directory, the virtual directory directory contains file paths from
all the storage devices installed on the computer, merged into a single directory structure.
So here you will notice that the Linux uses the forward slashes like this instead of a backward slash
like windows to denote the directories in file path.
So the backward slash character in Linux denotes an escape character and causes all sorts of problems.
When you use it in a file path.
So this is this might take some time to getting used to even if you are coming from the Windows environment.
So in Linux you will see the path names, for example, the root home.
Uh, and in home, for example, we, we we can have the documents here.
Documents?
And in docs we have we may have the, for example, test.txt.
The X team.
So this year.
Uh, it's not like, uh, windows, right?
So, uh, firstly, you come from the root home, then docs directory and then finally file here.
So this indicates that the file test.txt in the directory is documents under the directory home which
is contained in the directory home.
So obviously in the home here you will have the some user here and then the the directories here.
So the tricky part about the Linux virtual directory is how it incorporates each storage device.
So the first harddrive installed in a Linux system is called the root drive here.
So on the root drive, Linux can use special directories as a mount points.
So mount points are directories in the virtual directory where you can assign additional storage devices
so Linux houses, files and directories to appear within this Mount Point directories here.
Um, and even though they are physically stored on a different drive, so often systems files are physically
stored on the root drive here.
So usually typically stored on the separate drives or users in Linux.