Moving around quickly

Now I will show you some cool tricks that will make you fast and efficient in navigating the Linux directory tree.

Go back home!

Let's change to the /var/log directory:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cd /var/log 
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/var/log$ pwd
/var/log

You can now run the cd ~ command to go to your home directory:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:/var/log$ cd ~ 
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ pwd
/home/elliot

WOW! Let's do it again, but this time, we switch to user angela. In case you don't know, the character is called tilde and should be located next to your number 1 key on your keyboard:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ whoami 
elliot
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ su angela 
Password:
angela@ubuntu-linux:/home/elliot$ whoami 
angela

Notice here I used two new commands. The whoami command prints the name of the currently logged-in user. I also used the switch user su command to switch to user angela. You can use the su command to switch to any user on your system; you just need to run su, followed by the username.

Now, as user angela, I will navigate to the /var/log directory:

angela@ubuntu-linux:/home/elliot$ cd /var/log 
angela@ubuntu-linux:/var/log$ pwd
/var/log

Then I run the cd ~ command:

angela@ubuntu-linux:/var/log$ cd ~ 
angela@ubuntu-linux:~$ pwd
/home/angela

Boom! I am at Angela's home directory. Regardless of your current working directory, running the cd ~ command will land you straight to your home directory.

Take me back!

Now, what if angela wants to go back as quickly as possible to her previous working directory?

Running the cd - command is the fastest method that will land angela back to her previous working directory:

angela@ubuntu-linux:~$ pwd
/home/angela
angela@ubuntu-linux:~$ cd -
/var/log

Cool! angela is back in /var/log. So anytime you want to go back to your previous working directory, just run the cd - command.