Solved - Where are my program files stored? The thing I hate about Linux

[YouCanToo]

If one really needed to have a "DRIVE LETTER" could they not use the alias command to accomplish that? or some other sort of trickery?

[Rudge]

I am at a loss as to when a user would ever need to even know what drive their data is on. I mean "/" and "/home" are almost always on two different partitions, who cares if one partition is on one drive and the other is an entirely different drive, as long as both partitions are mounted, the user never has to specify.

When I type "cd /home/mydata", the OS already knows what drive that directory is on. It could even be on a third hard drive, why should the user keep track of it? 

I mean as a user. 

From an administrator's point, you might be interested to know where the mount points are located. 

[YouCanToo]

I am at a loss as to when a user would ever need to even know what drive their data is on. I mean "/" and "/home" are almost always on two different partitions, who cares if one partition is on one drive and the other is an entirely different drive, as long as both partitions are mounted, the user never has to specify.

When I type "cd /home/mydata", the OS already knows what drive that directory is on. It could even be on a third hard drive, why should the user keep track of it? 

I mean as a user. 

From an administrator's point, you might be interested to know where the mount points are located. 

For everything I do I use soft links to point to all my files and folders are save on a dive I called mydata  IE: Documents, Downloads, Pictures and so on.  When I formatted my system I gave all the partitions a volume label. Really is sorta simple, don't you agree

[Rudge]

I am at a loss as to when a user would ever need to even know what drive their data is on. I mean "/" and "/home" are almost always on two different partitions, who cares if one partition is on one drive and the other is an entirely different drive, as long as both partitions are mounted, the user never has to specify.

When I type "cd /home/mydata", the OS already knows what drive that directory is on. It could even be on a third hard drive, why should the user keep track of it?  

I mean as a user.  

From an administrator's point, you might be interested to know where the mount points are located.  

For everything I do I use soft links to point to all my files and folders are save on a dive I called mydata  IE: Documents, Downloads, Pictures and so on.  When I formatted my system I gave all the partitions a volume label. Really is sorta simple, don't you agree

I am not sure if you can even do this in winders.

[YouCanToo]

I am at a loss as to when a user would ever need to even know what drive their data is on. I mean "/" and "/home" are almost always on two different partitions, who cares if one partition is on one drive and the other is an entirely different drive, as long as both partitions are mounted, the user never has to specify.

When I type "cd /home/mydata", the OS already knows what drive that directory is on. It could even be on a third hard drive, why should the user keep track of it?  

I mean as a user.  

From an administrator's point, you might be interested to know where the mount points are located.  

For everything I do I use soft links to point to all my files and folders are save on a dive I called mydata  IE: Documents, Downloads, Pictures and so on.  When I formatted my system I gave all the partitions a volume label. Really is sorta simple, don't you agree

I am not sure if you can even do this in winders.

Here is what I found about them.

In computing, a symbolic link (also symlink or soft link) is a special type of file that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. Symbolic links were already present by 1978 in mini-computer operating systems from DEC and Data General's RDOS. (for all those Windows fans.... Sorry but MS didn't invent these either  ) Today they are supported by the POSIX operating-system standard, most Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X, and also Windows operating systems such as Windows Vista, Windows 7.

Symbolic links operate transparently for most operations: programs which read or write to files named by a symbolic link will behave as if operating directly on the target file. However, programs that need to handle symbolic links specially (e.g., backup utilities) may identify and manipulate them directly. A symbolic link merely contains a text string that is interpreted and followed by the operating system as a path to another file or directory. It is a file on its own and can exist independently of its target. If a symbolic link is deleted, its target remains unaffected. If the target is moved, renamed or deleted, any symbolic link that used to point to it continues to exist but now points to a non-existing file. Symbolic links pointing to non-existing files are sometimes called broken, orphaned, dead or dangling.

I could not find a definitive answer on  or about Windows 98, 2000, or XPee

[YouCanToo]

UPDATE about soft links

Some more searching actually turned this up.

Windows has actually supported a similar feature called Junctions since Windows 2000.  A junction is not exactly like a symlink but it does work for certain types of things.  The requirement is that the drive must be formatted as NTFS (FAT doesn’t support Junctions). The easiest way to manage junctions is with a freeware explorer add-on called NTFS Link.  NTFS Link adds a context menu to Explorer so it’s very simple to use, errrr screw up.  You can also download a Microsoft command-line utility called linkd.   Oh, icky that command line stuff. That is so old school. 
Starting with Windows Visa several types of links are supported including symbolic links using the command mlink. You can create them with a simple DOS command, however there is one trick (oh, a trick, is this like playing fetch) – you must create the link as administrator.  If you do not run the command as Administrator, you will get an error “You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation” (Well you DO NOT have to be root/admin in Linux to do one)

Code: [Select]

mklink /d c:\mylink c:\sourcefolder
You do have to specify if it is a directory or a normal file in windows. the "/d" specifies it to be a directory, in the above code.  I am so glad Linux makes it so simple.

[Village Idiot]

.../  I am so glad Linux makes it so simple.

Yeah. 

Thanks for the info. It's all good to know, but I'd doubt I'll ever need to put into practice any of this. 

[Fargo]

Thanks for all the input guys.  Good info and ideas in here.

[bicol_willem]

"I am trying to open a pdf in firefox and I get the popup box asking me which program to use.  I has Gimp selected by default which I think is an odd choice.  I think Okular is better for viewing pdfs.  But I can't find it anywhere."

A pdf file is so obviously a "office" style file. So right click the file and go for "open with". Then surf to office and pick the desired program to open it. You will see there of course only programs that are installed. If not, install one of your choice.
For pdf you can use Okular, Foxitreader, pdf-viewer, pdfedit, acrobat reader, and maybe more. There you can also checkmark sothat your PC will remember which program you used and next time it flies up in your face by just clicking on the file (or double click if set so).

Not that hard and even not that far from how things work in Windows.

[Rudge]

I think the OP is trying to open the document from within the browser, without downloading to the hard drive first. 

[Fargo]

I think the OP is trying to open the document from within the browser, without downloading to the hard drive first. 

Exactly.  That was the problem.  A saved file would open with Okular by default, just not in the firefox browser.  But as noted the problem as been solved.  Thank you.

[bicol_willem]

I think the OP is trying to open the document from within the browser, without downloading to the hard drive first. 

Yeah, I stand corrected 

But .. the OP got it sorted out meanwhile!