5.F: Copying Files

5: Managing Files and Directories

5.D: Changing Directories - Quickly

While it is possible to deal with Unix files without having them in directories and subdirectories, it's a great advance to organize related files into directories. Keeping all of your files in a single directory is much like storing all your papers in one big pile. In general, it leads to confusion and keeps you from working efficiently (if at all). The A Scientist's and Engineer's Guide to Workstations book contains some good ideas on setting up directory structures, and we recommend you read it once you start taking us seriously.

Let's start off in the already-existing directory development:

> cd ~/development

To create a new directory, issue the "make directory" command followed by the name of the directory you want to create:

> mkdir backup

Now use the "list" command to check that it's there:

> ls

Now let's create two additional directories in the home directory:

> cd ~
> mkdir backuphome
> mkdir backupdev

Check that this worked by issuing the "list" command ls. Now we get organized and copy some files into these directories.

5.F: Copying Files

5: Managing Files and Directories

5.D: Changing Directories - Quickly