Exploring our file systems

our file systems

understanding our file system

From l-o-c-a-l-h-o-s-t.com, a long term project initiated by Dave Young in 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20200813111950/https://dvyng.com/log/localhost-RWX/localhost-RWX.html:

As we increasingly outsource our data storage to "the cloud" and manage it with the multitude of apps on our smart devices, the traditional experience of the filesystem - with its associated workplace metaphors of files and folders - is being outmoded. At RWX, we will speculate on how this evolving experience of the filesystem mediates the existing frameworks and aesthetics of digital tool use, and collaboratively develop a series of responses that imagine how it could influence artistic production in the future.

touring around

home:

$ cd ~

root:

$ cd /

admin stuff:

$ cd /etc/ (in linux)

logs:

$ cd /var/log/
$ journalctl

Reference: Melanie Hoff, Peer-to-Peer Folder Poetry, workshop at Radical Networks (2019) https://www.radicalnetworks.org/archives/2019/participants/melanie-hoff/

What if we could transform our online networks from something we passively receive to something we actively create? Folder Poetry is the practice of using the structure of computer folder organization as a new kind of poetic form like the haiku or iambic pentameter. By naming and nesting folders and files, we can create unfolding narratives, rhythmic prose, and choose-your-own-adventure poetry.

limits

$ df -h 

exercises

Navigating our file systems

$ man find

Count how many PDFs you have in the home folder on your computer

$ find ~ | grep .pdf > pdfs.txt
$ cat pdfs.txt | wc -l 

same for jpgs!

as above, but with .jpg

count how many folders you have on your computer

$ sudo su
$ cd /
$ find -type d > /home/mb/folders.txt
$ cat /home/mb/folders.txt | wc -l

same for files!

-type f