How can I delete a directory using the terminal? When I try using rm or shred it says that I can't delete it because it is a directory.

Also, it says in rm that i should use shred to make it harder to find after it is deleted.... Where do the deleted files go after they are deleted??????

rmdir directory

or

rm -rf directory

----------
man rm
man rmdir

Where do the deleted files go after they are deleted?

They are deleted from the system. If you want to remove a file without actually deleting it, I suggest you use libtrash

The thing I don't understand is what I said before. When I type man rm in the terminal, it says that I should use shred to make the file harder to find after it is deleted. I assume that they mean that there is somewhere in the hard drive where the deleted files are..... am I wrong?

I think what it is referring to is the fact that when you delete a file it is not 'deleted' the way you typically think of deletion....the OS jsut makes sure nothing is pointing to that spot on the harddisk, and then sets that space as 'free' to be overwritten...

so when you delete a file, it actually is still on the harddisk, but is kinda just relabelled as free space until something else comes along and overwrites that sector...

Shred would write those blocks in the sector with random 1s and 0s so that data previously stored there (your deleted file) cannot be recovered...

That's how I understand it atleast...hope that helps!

ok, thanks. How would I delete a directory using shred? It says the same thing, that it is a directory...

shred a file and then open it, you'll see all the gibberish it's shredded to. to find out specific shred options, man shred.