I’ve just started my Linux journey earlier this year. As a goal to learn how to self-host applications and services that will allow me to take back some control of my data. Immich instead of Google Photos, for example.
I have a local server running Unraid and 22 docker containers now. And then a VPS (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) running two apps. I’ve learned a ton but one thing I can’t seem to wrap my brain around is navigation through the file structure using only terminal. My crutch has been to open a SFTP session in Cyberduck to the same device I’m SSH’d to and try to figure things out that way. I know enough to change directories, make directories, using Tree to show the file structure at different levels of depth. But I feel like I’m missing some efficient way to find my way to files and folders I need to get to. Or are y’all just memorizing it and know where everything is by now?
I come from a Windows background and even then I sometimes catch myself checking via explorer where a directory is instead of using CMD or PowerShell to find it.
I’d love to hear any tips or tricks!
EDIT: I’ve been using Termius because they have a great Android client, but I wasn’t about to pay $5/mo for sync. Especially to sync to someone else’s cloud. Which led me to Tabby, which I understand has quite a large footprint resource-wise. But I guess I either don’t know enough yet to be mad about it or it hasn’t impacted any of my systems negatively yet. No Android client though, but you can bring your own sync solution and it has a handy little shortcut to SFTP to the current directory you’re in. Between that and stuff like ranger, it’s made it so much easier to learn my way around!
Locate cheats by using a pre-built index.
But after the 2.5 years it takes to build the Windows index wouldn’t it be the same - just searching through a built index?
lol i remember hunting and systematically ripping out the file indexer in like vista? I think? It was terrible lol
It was honestly hilarious how bad it was and how much it could slow the system down in some situations. I’d be curious to see just how much of it was a byproduct of HDD’s - that is to say, just how slow is it even in solid state drives!
It’s been a while since I’ve had a Windows machine, but doesn’t Windows index the content of files as well as their names? If so, that would have fairly profound differences from
slocate.Windows indexes files too though.
I forgot that. I have never used the built-in Windows search. I hated it in XP and would just drop to a command prompt to find shit, then eventually started using Agent Ransack instead.
Windows has a pre-built index as well (or at least it has a search indexer service that enjoys as warm a CPU as possible). That doesn’t appear to improve the speed of search, though.
Unless you use everything (that’s what the software is called) to search.
It’s so fast I’m amazed why microsoft can’t have something similar out of the box.