UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA

FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

LINUX FILE DIRECTORIES

LAB MANUAL 3

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UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Lab objective
In this lab, you will explore the Linux file system, including the basic concepts of files
and directories and their organization in a hierarchical tree structure.
File and Directories
A directory is a collection of files and/or other directories
o Because a directory can contain other directories, we get a directory
hierarchy
The ‘top level’ of the hierarchy is the root directory
Files and directories can be named by a path
o Shows programs how to find their way to the file
o The root directory is referred to as /
o Other directories are referred to by name, and their names are separated by
slashes (/)
If a path refers to a directory it can end in /
Usually an extra slash at the end of a path makes no difference
Linux Files and Directories
Examples of Absolute Paths
An absolute path starts at the root of the directory hierarchy, and names
directories under it:
/etc/hostname
o Meaning the file called hostname in the directory etc in the root directory
We can use ls to list files in a specific directory by specifying the absolute path:
$ ls /usr/share/doc/
Current Directory
Your shell has a current directory — the directory in which you are currently
working
Commands like ls use the current directory if none is specified
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Use the pwd (print working directory) command to see what your current
directory is:
$ pwd
/home/fred
Change the current directory with cd:
$ cd /mnt/cdrom
$ pwd
/mnt/cdrom
Use cd without specifying a path to get back to your home directory

Making and Deleting Directories

The mkdir command makes new, empty, directories
For example, to make a directory for storing company accounts:
$ mkdir Accounts
To delete an empty directory, use rmdir:
$ rmdir OldAccounts
Use rm with the -r (recursive) option to delete directories and all the files they
contain:
$ rm -r OldAccounts
Be careful — rm can be a dangerous tool if misused
Relative Paths
Paths don’t have to start from the root directory
o A path which doesn’t start with / is a relative path
o It is relative to some other directory, usually the current directory
For example, the following sets of directory changes both end up in the same
directory:
$ cd /usr/share/doc
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

$ cd /
$ cd usr
$ cd share/doc
Relative paths specify files inside directories in the same way as absolute ones
Special Dot Directories
Every directory contains two special filenames which help making relative paths:
o The directory .. points to the parent directory
 ls .. will list the files in the parent directory
o For example, if we start from /home/fred:
$ cd ..
$ pwd
/home
$ cd ..
$ pwd
/
The special directory . points to the directory it is in
o So ./foo is the same file as foo

Using Dot Directories in Paths

The special .. and . directories can be used in paths just like any other directory
name:
$ cd ../other-dir/
o Meaning “the directory other-dir in the parent directory of the current
directory”
It is common to see .. used to ‘go back’ several directories from the current
directory:
$ ls ../../../../far-away-directory/
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

The. directory is most commonly used on its own, to mean “the current directory”
Hidden Files
The special . and .. directories don’t show up when you do ls
o They are hidden files
Simple rule: files whose names start with . are considered ‘hidden’
Make ls display all files, even the hidden ones, by giving it the -a (all) option:
$ ls -a
. .. .bashrc .profile report.doc
Hidden files are often used for configuration files
o Usually found in a user’s home directory
You can still read hidden files — they just don’t get listed by ls by default

Paths to Home Directories

The symbol ˜ (tilde) is an abbreviation for your home directory
o So for user ‘fred’, the following are equivalent:
$ cd /home/fred/documents/
$ cd ˜/documents/
The ˜ is expanded by the shell, so programs only see the complete path
You can get the paths to other users’ home directories using ˜, for example:
$ cat ˜alice/notes.txt
The following are all the same for user ‘fred’:
$ cd
$ cd ˜
$ cd /home/fred
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Looking for Files in the System

The command locate lists files which contain the text you give
For example, to find files whose name contains the word ‘mkdir’:
$ locate mkdir
/usr/man/man1/mkdir.1.gz
/usr/man/man2/mkdir.2.gz
/bin/mkdir
...
locate is useful for finding files when you don’t know exactly what they will be
called, or where
they are stored
For many users, graphical tools make it easier to navigate the filesystem
o Also make file management simpler

Running Programs
Programs under Linux are files, stored in directories like /bin and /usr/bin
o Run them from the shell, simply by typing their name
Many programs take options, which are added after their name and prefixed with -
For example, the -l option to ls gives more information, including the size of files
and the date
they were last modified:
$ ls -l
drwxrwxr-x 2 fred users 4096 Mar 01 10:57 Accounts
-rw-rw-r-- 1 fred users 345 Mar 01 10:57 notes.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 fred users 3255 Mar 01 10:57 report.txt
Many programs accept filenames after the options
o Specify multiple files by separating them with spaces
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Specifying Multiple Files

Most programs can be given a list of files
o For example, to delete several files at once:
$ rm oldnotes.txt tmp.txt stuff.doc
o To make several directories in one go:
$ mkdir Accounts Reports
The original use of cat was to join multiple files together
o For example, to list two files, one after another:
$ cat notes.txt morenotes.txt
If a filename contains spaces, or characters which are interpreted by the shell
(such as *), put
single quotes around them:
$ rm ’Beatles - Strawberry Fields.mp3’
$ cat ’* important notes.txt *’

Finding Documentation for Programs

Use the man command to read the manual for a program
The manual for a program is called its man page
o Other things, like file formats and library functions also have man pages
To read a man page, specify the name of the program to man:
$ man mkdir
To quit from the man page viewer press q
Man pages for programs usually have the following information:
o A description of what it does
o A list of options it accepts
o Other information, such as the name of the author
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Specifying Files with Wildcards

Use the * wildcard to specify multiple filenames to a program:
$ ls -l *.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 fred users 108 Nov 16 13:06 report.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 fred users 345 Jan 18 08:56 notes.txt
The shell expands the wildcard, and passes the full list of files to the program
Just using * on its own will expand to all the files in the current directory:
$ rm *
o (All the files, that is, except the hidden ones)
Names with wildcards in are called globs, and the process of expanding them is
called globbing

Chaining Programs Together

The who command lists the users currently logged in
The wc command counts bytes, words, and lines in its input
We combine them to count how many users are logged in:
$ who | wc -l
The | symbol makes a pipe between the two programs
o The output of who is fed into wc
The -l option makes wc print only the number of lines
Another example, to join all the text files together and count the words, lines and
characters in
the result:
$ cat *.txt | wc
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Graphical and Text Interfaces

Most modern desktop Linux systems provide a graphical user interface (GUI)
Linux systems use the X window system to provide graphics
o X is just another program, not built into Linux
o Usually X is started automatically when the computer boots
Linux can be used without a GUI, just using a command line
Use Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a text console — logging in works as it does in X
o Use Ctrl+Alt+F2, Ctrl+Alt+F3, etc., to switch between virtual terminals
— usually about 6 are provided
o Use Ctrl+Alt+F7, or whatever is after the virtual terminals, to switch back
to X
Text Editors
Text editors are for editing plain text files
o Don’t provide advanced formatting like word processors
o Extremely important — manipulating text is Unix’s raison d’être
The most popular editors are Emacs and Vim, both of which are very
sophisticated, but take
time to learn
Simpler editors include Nano, Pico, Kedit and Gnotepad
Some programs run a text editor for you
o They use the $EDITOR variable to decide which editor to use
o Usually it is set to vi, but it can be changed
o Another example of the component philosophy
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

4- Exercises
Q1
a. Use the pwd command to find out what directory you are in.
b. If you are not in your home directory (/home/USERNAME) then use cd without
any arguments to go there, and do pwd again.
c. Use cd to visit the root directory, and list the files there. You should see home
among the list.
d. Change into the directory called home and again list the files present. There
should be one directory for each user, including the user you are logged in as (you
can use whoami to check that).
e. Change into your home directory to confirm that you have gotten back to where
you started.

Q2
a. Create a text file in your home directory called shakespeare, containing the
following text:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
b. Rename it to sonnet-18.txt.
c. Make a new directory in your home directory, called poetry.
d. Move the poem file into the new directory.
e. Try to find a graphical directory-browsing program, and find your home directory
with it. You should also be able to use it to explore some of the system
directories.
f. Find a text editor program and use it to display and edit the sonnet.
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

Q3
a. From your home directory, list the files in the directory /usr/share.
b. Change to that directory, and use pwd to check that you are in the right place. List
the files in the current directory again, and then list the files in the directory called
doc.
c. Next list the files in the parent directory, and the directory above that.
d. Try the following command, and make sure you understand the result:
$ echo ˜
e. Use cat to display the contents of a text file which resides in your home directory
(create one if you haven’t already), using the ˜/ syntax to refer to it. It shouldn’t
matter what your current directory is when you run the command.

Q4
a. Use the hostname command, with no options, to print the hostname of the
machine you are using.
b. Use man to display some documentation on the hostname command. Find out
how to make it print the IP address of the machine instead of the hostname. You
will need to scroll down the manpage to the ‘Options’ section.

c. Use the locate command to find files whose name contains the text ‘hostname’.
Which of the filenames printed contain the actual hostname program itself? Try
running it by entering the program’s absolute path to check that you really have
found it.
Q5
a. The * wildcard on its own is expanded by the shell to a list of all the files in the
current directory. Use the echo command to see the result (but make sure you are
in a directory with a few files or directories first)
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

COMPUTER ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating systems

b. Use quoting to make echo print out an actual * symbol.

c. Augment the poetry directory you created earlier with another file, sonnet-29.txt:
When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
d. Use the cat command to display both of the poems, using a wildcard.
e. Finally, use the rm command to delete the poetry directory and the poems in it.