welcome to the video tutorial on
terminal vs. file manager have you
wondered what is the most frequent tasks
let you perform on your computer is it
playing games listening to music or
browsing the Internet this may be
surprising to some but the most frequent
tasks performed by an average user on a
computer is browsing creating moving and
deleting files so what are the ways to
manage files efficiently there are two
main ways the first one is the CLI or
command-line interface like the terminal
in a Bunton the second one is the
graphical user interface or GUI which is
like the file manager on any operating
system most of the beginners as well as
the experience to users prefer to use
the GUI but CLI has its own advantages
which we will discuss in this tutorial
so why learn the command-line interface
first the command-line interface is
highly flexible and offers options which
are not available in the GUI mode second
some configurations in GUI are up to
four screens deep while in the CLI it's
just a single command for example
creating a new account can take forward
different steps through the graphical
user interface whereas the same can be
done with a single terminal command
third
if you are thinking of moving hundreds
of files it can take hours using the GUI
mode whereas using regular expressions
on CLI you can do the same within
seconds forth cui loads fast and does
not consume Ram compared to GUI so it
does not affect system performance at
all this is important in crunch
situations when a server is down but GUI
has its importance to and especially
useful while viewing performance graphs
editing images and videos creating
sketches and trying out other graphic
intensive tasks the look feel an
operation of GUI based file manager is
similar across major operating systems
like Windows Mac operating system and
Linux it's the command-line interface
which people find challenging to use and
it will be the focus of our tutorials so
starting with how to launch the
command-line interface on the Ubuntu
operating system you can try the same
with the following two methods first
click on -
and type terminal then you would be able
to see a thumbnail with seis terminal go
ahead and click on it
this way the terminal window would pop
open or you can simply press the ctrl
alt and t keys on Benet ssin to launch
the same window once you have launched
the CLI you would find some information
already populated on the screen let us
learn what it is about the first part of
this line is the name of the user which
can be Bob Tom Ubuntu home or guru 99
the second part is the computer name or
the host name the host name helps
identify a computer over the network in
a server environment host name becomes
important the colon is a simple
separator the teal sign shows that the
user is working in the home directory if
you change the directory the sign will
vanish later we will learn how to move
between different directories and you
would see that the sign would not
display the dollar sign suggests that
you are working as a regular user in
Linux while working as a root or the
master user the hash sign is displayed
now in order to work on your files you
need to know which directory you are in
on the terminal this brings us to what
as a present working directory the
directory that you are currently
browsing is called the present working
directory we log on to the home
directory by default when you boot your
computer otherwise you can use the PWD
command
for knowing which directory you are
working on let's try the same on
terminal
here by using the PWD command
we got to know that we are in the home
guru nine-nine directory which also
happens to be the home directory for
this computer PWD stands for print
working directory
moving on to changing directories you
can do so by using a CD well it is not
the actual CD but the command let us
look at how it works here by using the
CD command you would move from the home
directory to the TMP directory then
again using the same command we would
move on to the bin directory trying the
same we would then move back to the TMP
directory if you want to navigate to the
home directory then you need to type CD
or CD space team in case you want to
move to the root directory you would
have to type CD space forward slash it
should be noted here that the root of
filesystem and linux is denoted by a
forward slash which is the same as C :
backward slash in Windows the apparent
difference is in Windows where you use a
backward slash while in UNIX or Linux a
forward slash is used let us try the
same on terminal so by using the CD
space field command we would move to the
home directory then if you want to move
to the root directory we would use CD
space forward slash
do not forget the space between CD and
forward slash to avoid error so how do
we navigate through multiple directories
you can navigate through multiple
directories at the same time by
specifying its complete path so if you
want to move to the CPU directory under
dev you do not need to break this
operation into parts let us look at it
on terminal here by using a single
command we would move from the home
directory to the CPU directory under dev
in case you want to move up one
directory you can easily do so by trying
CD space dot dot by using the CD space
dot dot command we would move from the
CPU directory to the dev directory then
again using the same command we would
move from dev directory to the root
directory it is important to understand
what is path in computing and what are
its types just like a path can make you
reach your home a path in computing is
the address of a file or folder so the C
documents and settings user downloads in
Windows and home user downloads path and
Linux would take you to the Downloads
folder there are two kinds of parts
absolute and relative let's start with
the first one let's say you have to
browse the images stored in the pictures
directory of the home folder guru nine
nine
the absolute filepath of pictures
directory is then home go nine nine
pictures so to navigate to this
directory you would have to use the
command CD home guru nine nine pictures
and this way you would read the pictures
directory this is called absolute path
as you are specifying the full path to
reach the file of the directory relative
path comes in handy when you have to
browse another subdirectory within a
given directory it saves you from the
effort to type complete parts all the
time
suppose you are already in your home
directory and you want to navigate to
the pictures directory for this you do
not need to type the absolute path with
the command as you're already in the
home
guru 9:9 directory you can simply type
CD space the name of the directory and
you would reach it
this way you do not have to specify the
complete path to read a specific
location within the same directory in
the file system so to summarize what we
have learned today to manage your files
you can use either the GUI or the CLI
and Linux you can launch the terminal
from the dashboard or using the shortcut
key ctrl alt and T the PWD commands
gives the present working directory you
can use the CD command to change
directories absolute path is complete
address of a file or directory relative
path is relative location of a file or
directory with respect to the current
directory relative path helps avoid
typing complete paths all the time let
us also refresh our memory on the CLI
commands learnt in this tutorial use CD
space directory named command to
navigate to a particular directory use
CD or CD space field command to move to
the home directory use CD space forward
slash command to navigate to the root
directory use CD space dot dot command
to move one level up in the directory
structure thank you for watching I will
see you in the next tutorial