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

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