Symbolic Links in Linux - Use SymLinks for Anything - Chris Titus Tech
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Date: 2022-03-21
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Comments and reviews: 10
Mitsunee
I use symbolic links for my web projects. I like having a Projects directory in my home directory, but for apache it's usually better to have the directories in something like /var/www that it can just own, so I added myself to the www-data group and made symbolic links in my Projects directory for each project, so I can easily find them while in terminal.
Another time where I needed symlinks was for Diablo 3. The install script on lutris really doesn't like NTFS, but I wanted to keep all of my games on my HDD that I'm keeping NTFS in case I ever need to dualboot windows for anything, so I made a link in the directory the install script made pointing to my old Diablo 3 install and I could select that in the battlenet launcher without any problems at all.
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I use symbolic links for my web projects. I like having a Projects directory in my home directory, but for apache it's usually better to have the directories in something like /var/www that it can just own, so I added myself to the www-data group and made symbolic links in my Projects directory for each project, so I can easily find them while in terminal.
Another time where I needed symlinks was for Diablo 3. The install script on lutris really doesn't like NTFS, but I wanted to keep all of my games on my HDD that I'm keeping NTFS in case I ever need to dualboot windows for anything, so I made a link in the directory the install script made pointing to my old Diablo 3 install and I could select that in the battlenet launcher without any problems at all.
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Kevin
Does symbolic link work across mapped drives?
I am using Ubuntu 18.04LTS, on machine A and machine B, both connected to the
same home network, and I have 2 drives (Drive1, Drive2) connected to B.
In A, I mapped and I can see and browse files in both Drive1 and Drive2.
I have file X in Drive 1, and file Y in Drive 2.
For some reason, I created a symbolic link in Drive 1 to link to file Y Drive 2.
I called the name of the symbolic link -Y1- in Drive1.
I observed that:
(i) Symbolic links work/visible in B, for files cross-mapped between Drive1 and Drive2.
(ii) Symbolic links not-work/invisible in A, for files cross-mapped between Drive1 and Drive2.
Anybody knows how to fix (ii) ?
THX!
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Does symbolic link work across mapped drives?
I am using Ubuntu 18.04LTS, on machine A and machine B, both connected to the
same home network, and I have 2 drives (Drive1, Drive2) connected to B.
In A, I mapped and I can see and browse files in both Drive1 and Drive2.
I have file X in Drive 1, and file Y in Drive 2.
For some reason, I created a symbolic link in Drive 1 to link to file Y Drive 2.
I called the name of the symbolic link -Y1- in Drive1.
I observed that:
(i) Symbolic links work/visible in B, for files cross-mapped between Drive1 and Drive2.
(ii) Symbolic links not-work/invisible in A, for files cross-mapped between Drive1 and Drive2.
Anybody knows how to fix (ii) ?
THX!
reply
Nino
I know it's been 2 years since this video came out but i am gonna use symlinks on my linux instalation to point me to directories i'd need for installing stuff that require me to extract stuff in directory also i can in a way mimic windows file system by using symlinks to make things simpler for my self so i don't have to look all over file system to find folder named .icons for example. I won't move files anywhere all i need is easy way of accessing folders i would otherwise need to go long way and remember path to folder, by using symlinks i don't have to.
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I know it's been 2 years since this video came out but i am gonna use symlinks on my linux instalation to point me to directories i'd need for installing stuff that require me to extract stuff in directory also i can in a way mimic windows file system by using symlinks to make things simpler for my self so i don't have to look all over file system to find folder named .icons for example. I won't move files anywhere all i need is easy way of accessing folders i would otherwise need to go long way and remember path to folder, by using symlinks i don't have to.
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Ishmeet
Thanks for the video, could you also please create a video explaining a use case of Hardlinks? I kind of know that it's great when we need to create a link of file without having to consume any more memory, but there's where I am a bit confused, the scenario that you showed today would have been perfect for a hardlink but we used symbolic link.
It will be great if you could help.
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Thanks for the video, could you also please create a video explaining a use case of Hardlinks? I kind of know that it's great when we need to create a link of file without having to consume any more memory, but there's where I am a bit confused, the scenario that you showed today would have been perfect for a hardlink but we used symbolic link.
It will be great if you could help.
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Lord
Wait, was that Diablo ONE?
I am becoming mad trying to get it to run the HD Mod -Belzebub- with WinE due to DirectX (they have to be... installed, set up? on WinE and is a hell of a job)...
Maybe I should try Lutris, but I have a lot of issues with this laptop since it has GRUB issues with older LinuxOS and other issues with Mint v19...
Ah, man >.
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Wait, was that Diablo ONE?
I am becoming mad trying to get it to run the HD Mod -Belzebub- with WinE due to DirectX (they have to be... installed, set up? on WinE and is a hell of a job)...
Maybe I should try Lutris, but I have a lot of issues with this laptop since it has GRUB issues with older LinuxOS and other issues with Mint v19...
Ah, man >.
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Bhushan
Symbolic links are slow on webservers... I have one shared source code and help of Symbolic link im creating multiple client site with different db configuration files although it works but the page load is very slow when compared to actual source code copied to client directory... any idea which would help me solve this issue
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Symbolic links are slow on webservers... I have one shared source code and help of Symbolic link im creating multiple client site with different db configuration files although it works but the page load is very slow when compared to actual source code copied to client directory... any idea which would help me solve this issue
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Ly
One of the best uses for this is in moving VB virtual machines, which is otherwise a nightmare. It also solves the problem in Windows of having a home directory that points to another (data only) drive. Can't believe I haven't been using this since it was created for Windows XP. Would have saved me a lot of headaches.
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One of the best uses for this is in moving VB virtual machines, which is otherwise a nightmare. It also solves the problem in Windows of having a home directory that points to another (data only) drive. Can't believe I haven't been using this since it was created for Windows XP. Would have saved me a lot of headaches.
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teddy
Often you have some MP3s or podcasts or whatever using up a lot of space so you need to move it to a larger drive without losing the files+folders structure. So I start by moving the directory to the larger drive. Then make a symlink and check permissions. Not sure if that is the correct order but it works for me.
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Often you have some MP3s or podcasts or whatever using up a lot of space so you need to move it to a larger drive without losing the files+folders structure. So I start by moving the directory to the larger drive. Then make a symlink and check permissions. Not sure if that is the correct order but it works for me.
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99corncob
It's powerful and it's fun, but be careful about using it too much. One commercial version of UNIX used to build an entire virtual filesystem out of symlinks so that their admin tools always saw the same system no matter where the files actually were residing. It was a nightmare to maintain and troubleshoot.
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It's powerful and it's fun, but be careful about using it too much. One commercial version of UNIX used to build an entire virtual filesystem out of symlinks so that their admin tools always saw the same system no matter where the files actually were residing. It was a nightmare to maintain and troubleshoot.
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sarath
how to do symbolic link for recent file/directory which will be created automatically.
eg: we have 2 directory a and b , we need to refer to the newest directory always . if c is created then it should refer c
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how to do symbolic link for recent file/directory which will be created automatically.
eg: we have 2 directory a and b , we need to refer to the newest directory always . if c is created then it should refer c
reply
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