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!

    • SnachBarr@lemm.ee
      8·
      1 year ago

      Why use a separate command when “cd -“ works just fine to take you to the previous directory

      • teawrecks
        111·
        1 year ago
        cd a
cd b
cd c
popd
popd
// you're now in "a"

        cd a
cd b
cd c
cd -
cd -
// you're now in "c" and need to manually cd to "a"
        • z3bra@lemmy.sdf.org
          3·
          1 year ago

          You mean

          cd a
pushd b
pushed c
popd
popd

          Right ?

          Depending on your shell, pushd/popd might not be an option. For a similar functionality, I like to use a subshell which is portable across all shells:

          cd a
$SHELL
cd b
cd c
# do work here
^D
# you're back in "a"
          • teawrecks
            3·
            1 year ago

            Ah, I guess I have auto_pushd enabled in zsh, so it just happens when I cd. TIL.

      • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Right, but what if the dir you want to return to was not the last one?

        For example, you are working in two dirs and go into your home dir for something, now you can pop yourself back into your long ass hard to type working path.