February 2004
Beginner
200 pages
5h 40m
English
Users’ personal files are often found in /home (for ordinary users) or /root (for superusers). Your home directory is typically /home/your-username: /home/smith, /home/jones, etc. There are several ways to locate or refer to your home directory.
With no arguments, the cd command returns you (i.e., sets the shell’s working directory) to your home directory.
The environment variable HOME (see Shell variables) contains the name of your home directory.
$ echo $HOME The echo command prints its arguments
/home/smithWhen used in place of a directory, a lone tilde is expanded by the shell to the name of your home directory.
$ echo ~ /home/smith
When followed by a username (as in ~smith), the shell expands this string to be the user’s home directory:
$ cd ~smith
$ pwd The "print working directory" command
/home/smith