[SOLVED] Why does terminal say "no such file or directory" when I try to cd/ to it?

zavmat · 01-24-2019, 09:05 PM

Here's what I've got:

[matt@localhost ~]$ cd/home/matt/downloads
bash: cd/home/matt/downloads: No such file or directory

jkirchner · 01-24-2019, 09:12 PM

Okay, where it shows [matt@localhost ~]$ that means you are signed in as matt the little ~ means you are in home already. The $ means you are signed in as a user and not as root. From this if you type: cd downloads it should go there since you are already in your home. Check though, sometimes downloads is spelled with a capital D and Downloads and downloads are not the same in Linux, case matters.

Open a terminal and type ls (lower case L and s) and you should see your folders.

jsbjsb001 · 01-24-2019, 09:15 PM

Also, you have not included a space between "cd" and "/home", this is why it cannot find it.

Code:

[james@jamespc ~]$ cd/home
bash: cd/home: No such file or directory
[james@jamespc ~]$ cd /home
[james@jamespc home]$ pwd
/home
[james@jamespc home]$

zavmat · 01-24-2019, 09:21 PM

Thanks to both of you, I tried it with a space before I posted the question with no luck, but I wasn't sure if it needed it or not.
[matt@localhost ~]$ cd /Downloads still couldn't find the directory, but cd Downloads did. I thought you needed the / but I guess you don't?

Thanks again!

jsbjsb001 · 01-24-2019, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zavmat

...
[matt@localhost ~]$ cd /Downloads still couldn't find the directory, but cd Downloads did. I thought you needed the / but I guess you don't?
...

Look up "absolute paths" and "relative paths", there in lies the answer to that question.

scasey · 01-25-2019, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zavmat

Thanks to both of you, I tried it with a space before I posted the question with no luck, but I wasn't sure if it needed it or not.
[matt@localhost ~]$ cd /Downloads still couldn't find the directory, but cd Downloads did. I thought you needed the / but I guess you don't?

Thanks again!

The ~ (highlighted above) means that you are in your home directory. Downloads is in your home directory, so cd Downloads will change you to that sub-directory, and your prompt will then show

Code:

[matt@localhost Downloads]$

As stated use ls -l to see what's in the directory you're in...and pwd (print working directory) to see what directory you're actually in.
As always, use man ls and man pwd to find out what those commands actually do.

Also take a look at

Code:

ls -l /

to see what's in the root (/) directory. You'll see that there's no Downloads directory there...so "No such file or directory"

dugan · 01-25-2019, 12:41 PM

Code:

cd /home/matt/Downloads

"Downloads" is usually capitalized.

zavmat · 01-25-2019, 12:49 PM

Thanks again everyone. I'm working on Fedora 22 but want to upgrade it to the most recent and stable version, can I ask for your help here or should I start a new thread?

rob.rice · 01-25-2019, 12:53 PM

I know it's kind of cheating
have a look at midnight commander the command to bring it up is "mc"
it's the easiest way to deal with files that have spaces in the file names and other odd ball file names

scasey · 01-25-2019, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zavmat

Thanks again everyone. I'm working on Fedora 22 but want to upgrade it to the most recent and stable version, can I ask for your help here or should I start a new thread?

It would probably work better to start a new thread, either here or in the Fedora distro forum.