Copying, Moving, and Renaming Files in Linux

Today we are going to start doing something useful.

We will start learning about installing a Yahoo Messenger client with webcam support.

1. For Kubuntu, start Conqueror web browser. You can find it near the K button on your menubar.

For those using Ubuntu go to your menubar. Then go to internet. Then click on Firefox.

2. Point your browser to
http://www.phrozensmoke.com/projects/pyvoicechat/index.php

This is the official page of GyachE, a program dedicated to Yahoo Messenger

3. Click on their download section

4.
This will bring you to
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57756

5. Download gyach-enhanced_pyvoice-binary-1.0.7-i586.tar.bz2 , the GyachE program

6. Then download gyachE-Webcam-Utilities-0.4-i586.tar.bz2, the webcam plugin for GyachE

7. Conqueror web browser will ask you where you would like to place the file that you are downloading. Just place it on your default directory. In my case, it is /home/anthony

While Firefox by default will download it on your /home/username/Desktop directory. In my case /home/anthony/Desktop

Let's learn about copying files.

In order for us to install gyachE and it's plugin, we need to move it to the top directory of your Kubuntu or Ubuntu installation which is the / directory.

We won't be able to do this as a normal user because only the root user has access to Linux's top most directory.

So what we will do is

1. Open your Linux terminal.

2. Type
$ sudo -s

3. Type the password so that you can login as root

4. To copy the file to / directory:
Type:
# cp /home/anthony/gyach-enhanced_pyvoice-binary-1.0.7-i586.tar.bz2 /.

5. Then type:
#cp /home/anthony/gyachE-Webcam-Utilities-0.4-i586.tar.bz2 /.

6. If the file is in /home/anthony/Desktop, you would instead do:

#cp /home/anthony/Desktop/gyach-enhanced_pyvoice-binary-1.0.7-i586.tar.bz2 /.

and

# cp /home/anthony/Desktop/gyachE-Webcam-Utilities-0.4-i586.tar.bz2 /.

Now for the explanation of the cp command.

The first argument is the absolute path and the name of your source file.

The second argument is the destination directory or the place where you want to copy your file plus the filename you want to give it.

You will notice the dot after / directory in the destination argument.

It means that I want to retain the original file name when I copy the installer to the new directory.

To verify that you were indeed able to copy the files to / directory.

Type:

#ls /

If you see the files then you were able to copy them.


Let's learn about moving files.

In order to move files in Linux you will need to use the mv command.

The mv command is very similar to the cp command. In fact you could say they are exactly the same.

There is just one big difference. With the mv command the file in the source directory is erased after you moved the file.

so like in the cp command you would type:

# mv /home/anthony/gyach-enhanced_pyvoice-binary-1.0.7-i586.tar.bz2 /.

and

#mv /home/anthony/gyachE-Webcam-Utilities-0.4-i586.tar.bz2 /.


Renaming Files
You could also use the mv command to rename files.

For example:

#mv /home/anthony/gyachE-Webcam-Utilities-0.4-i586.tar.bz2 /home/anthony/gyachEWebcam

What I did was move the file to the same directory but I changed the name to gyachEWebcam


Whew! This has been a long post.

Tomorrow we are going to learn about synaptics to solve gyachE's dependecy issues and then finally on the next post we will install and run GyachE and test the webcam viewer.

If you're adventurous, Just follow the installation instructions on the official home page.

It's pretty easy.