I just type ls everytime I cd into something. It's not that efficient honestly but I usually remember where I want to go after going there a couple times. Also if you hit tab twice after typing cd and a space, it shows all of the files in the directory.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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That's where I'm at now. And it does work. But I knew there had to be something out in the wild that folks use to traverse or at least understand where they are better. I do like Tree for a more in depth ls though. I don't recall the options you can throw at the end of tree off the top of my head but you can specify how many layers you want to go down to see a visual of the file structure.
Problem with most tips and tricks is that they require customizations to the OS. Many people who use Linux in a more advanced fashion, tend to also use lots of different systems, e.g. because they're a system administrator. And you don't want to have to make customizations to every system just to be able to get around. So, you learn to work with the lowest common denominator (mostly POSIX commands).
Many of us do still choose to make some customizations to our most used systems, but yeah, we try to keep it lightweight and mostly just utilize tools that aid in using the POSIX commands, not replace them.
exa is a nice alternative to ls and tree commands. Just add an alias to them based on the views you want.
But like other comment points out avoid lots of customization if you work on various shared systems, esp SSHing in.
With my keyboard layout and other keybind customizations my system is pretty unusable to others except basic mouse on browser. Like wise i have trouble using others' systems and need to setup any new installs to a precise way before able to work. Slightly regret going too much into customization in certain aspects.
Not sure if limited to certain emulators, alt+l should do that for you
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.
Not sure if it helps with navigating but ncdu is my favorite terminal app for figuring out where something is. Then I just jump to that. I’m sure there are better ways but that’s my method.
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 data and a config directory, 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 old will give you a list of files you recently edited and you can jump to them by inputting a number.
Vifm is ridiculously customizable but also assumes that you're competent with the modal paradigm of Vim.
If you're in a WM, you can use a terminal emulator with SIXEL support (Alacritty is no longer maintained but Wezterm is great) and you can get image previews as well.
Even on a headless server, I love being able to predefine bookmarks.
A simple workflow would be, 'e goes to '/etc/'. HJKL to whatever directory I want, ZZ, then there I am.
There's so much more that can be done, though.
Edit: It looks like alacritty is alive! No idea why I had thought that it had been abandoned. Apologies for the accidental gaslighting.
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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...)
That's a good question 💯 In my case too, it took me some time (read years 😂) to figure out what I'm comfortable w/.
I can think of 3 major ways that you can navigate the filesystem while being able to drop to a shell when you need it:
- If you're familiar w/ Emacs, you can either:
- Use
diredandtrampon your machine to access/navigate the target machine. - Install Emacs (
emacs-nox) on the target machine, SSH and then runemacs-noxand voila! No need fortrampin this scenario.
- Use
- Use Midnight Commander (
mc) which offers a TUI pretty much like Norton Commander (nc) from the days of yore. - Get used to the semi-standard structure of the file system and just use plain Bash (
cd,pushd&popd) to move around. That is- Understand what usually goes into common directories (like
/usr/shareor/opt) and try to follow the same pattern when rolling your own software installations. - Learn how to use your distro's package manager to query packages and find out where things, like configurations and docs, are stored. Something as simple as
rpm -q --listis what you usually need.
- Understand what usually goes into common directories (like
HTH
I felt the same. Simple tasks I do in terminal, but when I have to deal with too many files and folders I use filebrowser. Its amazing docker container with simple GUI
@Father_Redbeard
alias !="cd .."
Works wonders on azerty keyboards, where ! is close to return key. I guess you could pair another key with ctrl for the same effect ?