file management in the terminal

I’ve begun using Vim for non-technical purposes too. It’s just too convenient. All you need to do is type “vim [name of file with extension]” in the terminal, & voila a text editor appears. No need to browse the app list & click “Text Editor” & do a few clicks to open a simple file. Vim is really handy when you rely more on using the terminal to navigate a computer’s files & folders instead of its GUI file management software (in Ubuntu this software is the “Files” application &, as you guessed it, it has the icon of a partially-open folder). I’ve recently been trying to use only the terminal for file management purposes, instead of a GUI, because it’s such a handy learning experience. I believe it’s always the small things you learn & practice everyday that you actually master in. With file management in the terminal, the command you’re likely to use most is “cd”. I’m pretty sure it was the first terminal command I learned. No, that was ping. Okay, cd was the second terminal command I learned.

It’s pretty straightforward. The “cd” command stands for “change directory” & does what it says it does; it changes your directory. Just typing “cd” followed by a space & the name of the folder you’re trying to enter will change your entire location. Typing “cd” followed by a space & either a dash (-) or two dots (..) will make you go back to the previous repo you were in. The dash prints the location of the previous repo before actually making you enter it. I find that awkward but a dash is quicker to type instead of two dots, so I use the dash almost all the time. To view what files & folders are stored in your current location, you’ve to use “ls” which is the list command. The names of all the folders & files will be displayed in a horizontal manner. If you want more information about each folder & file & want them to look neater, type “ls -l” instead. That’s what I do. Let me show you how the “ls -l” command works. Say I’m in a folder called “Wallpapers” & I want to see the contents of whatever is inside it. After cd-in g (is this a word? If it isn’t, well I’ve coined it!) myself into the folder, I type “ls -l”. This is what it’ll show: \

total 3480 \ -rwxr-xr-x 1 fahim fahim 285547 Mar 19 20:01 ‘additional wallpaper.jpeg’
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fahim fahim 260728 Dec 17 2025 ‘computer wallpaper (colored).jpeg’
-rw-rw-r– 1 fahim fahim 2728851 Jun 24 13:58 ‘computer wallpaper 4k (monochrome).jpg’
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fahim fahim 279219 Dec 17 2025 ‘phone wallpaper.jpeg’ \

I’m not sure what the total stands for. Maybe it’s the volume in bytes? I’m also not sure why some entries are in green while others are in purple. In my terminal, it shows the names of all four entries in green except the third one which is in some shade of pink. Well, it shows that I’m still learning. Anyways, the first column shows the type of entry. If it starts with a dash like in “-rwxr-xr-x” that means it’s a file. If it starts with a “d”, it’s a folder. I don’t have any folders inside the Wallpapers repo, so everything starts with a dash. The next columns are about the number of items (I assume), authors & users, file size in something, date of creation, & the name of the file. Among system professionals, it’s good practice to name your files are folders with dashes between words instead of spaces since it makes it easier to cd & access them. I don’t follow this practice, however. Instead I just use single quotation marks, & enter tab so I don’t have to type it’s full name. I just prefer spaces. They look more aesthetic & make the folders & files easier to read.