• What is the difference between the home directory and the login directory?

    None. Same thing.

  • What is the purpose of the dot (.)? I thought the current working directory would be assumed, if you don't specify the home directory?

    The CWD is assumed in some cases (e.g. ls) but not always. Sometimes a location directory is required, such as the cp command.

    The dot allows us to refer to the current directory. For example, in the cp command, you can copy a file to the current directory by using . as the destination. I also recently saw some Python code where the import statement was 

            from . import foo
  • I feel a little confused about where the files that use the mv command go and I am unclear about the tarfile

    The mv command requires a destination, so it's up to you.

    Tarfiles and zipfiles are a suitcase that contains a copy of all the files and their contents.

  • Can I get a clarification on what 'ls -l' means as opposed to just doing 'ls'? It appeared kind of far down on the Unix reading page.

    The -l command line argument (called a "switch") requests that the ls command give a long listing, with lots more information on each entry. We won't use it often, but it's occasionally useful, like how big a file is, or what its permissions are.

  • I'm also still a bit confused on "rm dir" vs "rm -r dir"... what does it mean to recursively delete, like within the specified directory to delete until everything is gone?

    Yeah, that's basically right. Here's a recursive definition:

    To recursively delete a directory means to recursively delete its contents and then the directory itself.

  • In what cases would it be reasonable to use rm -r dir if it is worse than utilizing rm?

    I use rm -r a lot. There's nothing wrong with it, except that it does a lot, so if you delete the wrong thing, you do more damage. It's a sledgehammer, not a mallet.

  • Still a little confused on the difference between ~ vs. ~username. / Also could you explain the difference between "~/" and "~user/" again? Is it just that with the second one, you can specify which user you want, and the former is just for your own home?

    Yes, that's right. The ~/ is like the pronoun "me" or "my" while ~wendy refers to Wendy.

  • How do you recover an accidentally deleted file or folder?

    LTS backs up our server automatically every night, so deleted files from yesterday can be recovered from backups.

    If you create a file and five minutes later you delete it, well, you've just lost five minutes work.

  • I'm still a little unsure about how relative pathnames/ways work.

    A relative pathname is a series of steps from *the starting point*, which is typically the referring file.

  • I'm still unfamiliar with tar. Is changing file name similar to shallow/deep copy in Python?

    I suppose it's similar to a deep copy in Python, in that the contents of every file is copied into the suitcase. There are no "pointers" to existing files.

    The name comes from "tape archive" so think of it like copying your files onto a tape and handing that tape to someone.

  • NA, I hope we can have more examples of new concepts in class to gain a better understanding of the materials

    I think we will!