What am I doing wrong?

[huff2]

Hey guys!

I'm trying to learn how to navigate the file system. Can someone tell me why I cant cd /documents or desktop or any other folder in the following:

brandon@brandon-NV57H:~$ ls

Desktop Downloads Pictures PycharmProjects Videos
Documents Music Public Templates

brandon@brandon-NV57H:~$ cd /documents
bash: cd: /desktop: No such file or directory

brandon@brandon-NV57H:~$

It says "no such file or directory" but it appears to exist. What am I doing wrong here?

[steeldriver]

Two things:

1. the leading / tells the system you are referring to a file or directory at the root of the filesystem (an absolute path) - if you want to refer to a file or directory in the current directory then just use a relative path, either with no prefix


cd Documents

or using a prefix that means "current directory"


cd ./Documents


2. unlike Windows, file and directory names are case sensitive so Documents exists but documents doesn't

[huff2]

Thank you so much!

[Mark Phelps]

Also ... you need to pay attention to the Case of letters in Linux. "Documents" is NOT the same as "documents". So, if the directory is named "Documents", then "cd documents" is NOT going to work, but "cd Documents" will work.

[flaymond]

Also ... you need to pay attention to the Case of letters in Linux. "Documents" is NOT the same as "documents". So, if the directory is named "Documents", then "cd documents" is NOT going to work, but "cd Documents" will work.

+1

Also, if you want to access a directory, that contain spaces in the directory name. Just put '\' when use cd command to format it. Here an example -


cd my\ file # You cannot access with just 'cd my file', just use 'cd my\ file'


If you want to learn about Bash (a scripting/programming language(whatever you might call) that come as default shell for you Terminal. Here a good guide -

www.linux-training.be/files/books/LinuxTraining.pdf

[huff2]

Thanks for all your help, guys!