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Intro

Navigation taught you how to move around. Now let's learn how to change things.

You'll learn how to:

  • Create files and folders
  • Move, copy, and delete them
  • View and edit what's inside

Linux naming conventions

Case sensitive : File.txt ≠ file.txt

Use only: letters, numbers, -, _, .

Avoid: spaces, *, ?, $, !, @, #, (, ), /

Extensions are just hints: Linux ignores them. photo.jpg might be a PNG. Still use extensions to help yourself (and others).

good_names.txt
my-document.md
notes_2024.txt

bad name.txt   # needs quotes or escapes
what?.md       # ? is special to the shell

Spaces need quotes

To use a file named with spaces like my notes.txt, write it as:

[command] "my notes.txt"
# or [command] my\ notes.txt

On macOS or Windows, readme.md and README.md are the same file. On Linux, they are different. This can cause merge conflicts if you share files between systems (like Git repos).