Quick Start Guide

3 Write some sentences. If you want to insert a new line, rst press [Esc] to
switch back to command mode. Press [O] to insert a new line and to switch
to insert mode again.
4 In the insert mode, you can edit the text with the arrow keys and with [Del].
5 To leave vi, press [Esc] to switch to command mode again. Then press [:]
which takes you to the extended mode. The bottom line now shows a colon.
6
To leave vi and save your changes, type wq (w for write; q for quit) and press
[Enter]. If you want to save the le under a dierent name, type w filename
and press [Enter].
To leave vi without saving, type q! instead and press [Enter].
7.8 Searching for Files or Contents
Bash oers you several commands to search for les and to search for the contents
of les:
locate
This utility is only available if you have installed the findutils-locate package.
With this command you can nd out in which directory a specied le is located.
If desired, use wild cards to specify lenames. The program is very quick, because
it uses a database specically created for the purpose (rather than searching
through the entire le system). This very fact, however, also results in a major
drawback: locate is unable to nd any les created after the latest update of its
database. The database can be generated by root running updatedb.
find
With find, search for a le in a given directory. The rst argument species the
directory in which to start the search. The option -name must be followed by a
search string, which may also include wild cards. Unlike locate, which uses a
database, find scans the actual directory.
grep
The grep command nds a specic search string in the specied text les. If the
search string is found, the command displays the line in which searchstring was
found, along with the lename. If desired, use wild cards to specify lenames.
7.8.1 Examples for Searching
The KDE and GNOME desktops store user-specic application data in hidden direc-
tories, for example .kde and .gnome.
1 To locate these directories on your computer, enter
locate .kde
Shell Basics 101