I frequently find myself googling the difference between symbolic links and hard links. Each time, I conclude that hard links seem superior in most use cases, especially when Linux is my daily driver. However, I find this conclusion unsatisfactory because almost every tutorial, blog post, or Stack Overflow answer discussing links overwhelmingly recommends symbolic links instead. My understanding so far: - On a Unix system, a "**file**" is essentially an address pointing to data on disk. - A hard link allows multiple addresses to reference the same data, making it a powerful tool. For example, if I create a hard link to a file in ~/Documents, I can access the same data from ~/Desktop, and if I move the file from ~/Documents to ~/Images, the hard link still works seamlessly. This behavior reminds me of Windows shortcuts but without the fragility—hard links remain valid even after moving the original file. On the other hand, symbolic links break if the target file is moved, which seems like a significant drawback. The only major advantage of symlinks I’ve found is that they can span different filesystems, whereas hard links are restricted to the same filesystem. Given this, why are symbolic links the standard in most cases? What are the practical scenarios where symlinks are preferable over hard links?

I’m attempting to copy a symlink of a file in one directory to another directory. I need the copy to be a symlink, not a hard link or a broken symlink. cp -A and cp -P generated broken (flashing) symlinks as indicated by file -b . cp and cp -R create hard links. How would I create a copy of the symlink without resorting to ln -s and creating a new symlink from the original file (therefore requiring knowledge of its inode)? Thanks for your help.

I don’t know much about flatpak, so not sure where to look for. I can’t open links from thunderbird flatpak to firefox flatpak. I’ve looked around it seems that it should be an problem with *portals*. Yet, when I try to debug with flatpak run --log-session-bus org.gnome.Maps, the logs don’t seem to show anything wrong with portals when clicking on a link in the app (at least I don’t see it):

C63: -> org.freedesktop.DBus call org.freedesktop.DBus.AddMatch at /org/freedesktop/DBus
C64: -> org.freedesktop.DBus call org.freedesktop.DBus.AddMatch at /org/freedesktop/DBus
C65: -> org.freedesktop.DBus call org.freedesktop.DBus.StartServiceByName at /org/freedesktop/DBus
B40:  org.freedesktop.DBus call org.freedesktop.DBus.GetNameOwner at /org/freedesktop/DBus
B43:  :1.80 call org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.GetAll at /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop
B1171:  :1.80 call org.freedesktop.portal.OpenURI.OpenURI at /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop
B1172: <- :1.80 return from C68
B1175: <- :1.80 signal org.freedesktop.portal.Request.Response at /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop/request/1_715/gtk2129782386

I don’t get it. Thoughts? My OS:

6.2.0-36-generic #37~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Oct  9 15:34:04 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

flatpak version:

Flatpak 1.12.7

I have been building a Linux From Scratch system and I have installed the Links web browser on it, which I am running in graphical mode via DirectFB (I have not yet installed the X Window System). I am wondering if there is a way that I can copy text from a Links webpage running in one tty, to a console (Bash) running in another tty? I know text can be copied between two ttys with GPM; however, I can't find a way to do it from Links. In text mode, I seem to be unable to highlight text with the cursor; in graphical mode, I can highlight text, but it doesn't copy to the console with the middle mouse button, like it does in GPM. It would be very helpful for building further LFS packages, if I could copy-paste text from a web browser to the console.

Anyone know how to get the latest Thunderbird working with the latest Firefox on Linux, so that when you click on a link in an email a browser tab opens the selected URL? In the recent Thunderbird 78.11.0 update web links stopped working again for me on Debian 10. In previous Thunderbird versions I was able to change Apparmor to **complain mode** to make links work property. *Also note that there are LOTS of old fixes for this found from a web search that don't apply because they are outdated, but still linger on the web.* *(I am aware of the tradoff between using the latest version of thunderbird, and using an older package version of thunderbird with known bugs in it, but that might not stumble over apparmor issues. Hopefully someday the latest version will also come with an appropriate apparmor profile so that we don't have to choose between old and new.)*

*Note: Question although says vice versa but it really does not have any meaning since both of them point to the same inode and its not possible to say which is head and which is tail.* Say I have a file hlh.txt [root@FREL ~]# fallocate -l 100 hlh.txt Now if I see the change time for hlh.txt [root@FREL ~]# stat hlh.txt File: hlh.txt Size: 100 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: fc00h/64512d Inode: 994 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0 Access: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Modify: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Change: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Birth: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Creating hard link [root@FREL ~]# ln hlh.txt hlt.txt Since both hlh.txt and hlt.txt points to same inode, so change time would be the ctime of the hard link tail file which is understood. [root@FREL ~]# stat hlt.txt File: hlt.txt Size: 100 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: fc00h/64512d Inode: 994 Links: 2 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0 Access: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Modify: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Change: 2023-01-11 01:44:05.316842644 -0500 Birth: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 But if I unlink the head file, that changes ctime of the file as well. Why? I mean all we did is delete the head, **what significance does change time have here internally. Why does it need to be change?** [root@FREL ~]# unlink hlh.txt [root@FREL ~]# [root@FREL ~]# stat hlt.txt File: hlt.txt Size: 100 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: fc00h/64512d Inode: 994 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Context: unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0 Access: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Modify: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500 Change: 2023-01-11 01:47:49.588364704 -0500 Birth: 2023-01-11 01:43:05.469703330 -0500

I used to utilize following command to get all links of a web-page and then grep what I want: curl $URL 2>&1 | grep -o -E 'href="([^"#]+)"' | cut -d'"' -f2 | egrep $CMP-[0-9].[0-9].[0-9]$ | cut -d'-' -f3 It was doing great till yesterday. I tried to run curl itself and I saw it returns: % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0 Was there any possible updates which causes the command not working or what? **EDIT 1:** I changed my approach to wget regarding [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/2804721/1626977) : wget -q $URL -O - | grep -o -E 'href="([^"#]+)"' | cut -d'"' -f2 | egrep $CMP-[0-9].[0-9].[0-9]$ | cut -d'-' -f3 But still doesn't know why curl approach suddenly stopped working.

By default, if open multiple screen browsing same website, it use same cookies. I don't want Links browser to write anything on disk while browsing, so that I can open multiple screen without same cookies. I've tried installing in chroot jail. It giving below error: Unable to find or create links2 config directory. Please check, that you have $HOME variable set correctly and that you have write permission to your home directory. Actually, above is what I need in the host machine. But where is links2 config directory? I need to disable the write permission. I have tried searching but could not find it. Or is there better workaround? -----------added: I find out Links will create ~/.links2 directory when started. If deleted, it will keep creating this directory. If we set permission, it will override it. In my chroot jail, there is no ~ due to old version uck

So, I know that it is possible to view or recover deleted files that are currently being used by a process. I've found out that this also applies to packages that were updated. So, let's say we update a package, but that package is still being used by another process and ultimately running on an older version of that package since it has not been restarted. So, my question is, how do we determine the processes that are running on an older version of that package due to it not being restarted?

I try to tell only the details My browsers have no problem with https sites. But when they get to tools like links, wget and curl, they run into trouble, sites like gitlab, github, google, etc. are unable to provide https protocol with the mentioned tools. But most sites work and have no problems. I think the problem is with the proxy because I created a file /etc/profile.d/proxy.sh and set my proxies to listen on the ssh server socket on port 6000 but I removed it again but the problem still There was. I even removed curl and mistakenly wiped the kernel and system with it and loaded the os live and fixed it and now it works fine but I don't have access to sites like github.com and gitlab.com (only on tools, not in the browser)

[ahmadreza@ahmadreza ~]$ wget https://github.com 
--2022-10-08 15:13:44--  https://github.com/ 
Loaded CA certificate '/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt'
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 140.82.121.4
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|140.82.121.4|:443... connected.
Unable to establish SSL connection.

[ahmadreza@ahmadreza ~]$ curl -v https://github.com 
*   Trying 140.82.121.4:443...
* Connected to github.com (140.82.121.4) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN: offers h2
* ALPN: offers http/1.1
*  CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
*  CApath: none
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* SSL connection timeout
* Closing connection 0
curl: (28) SSL connection timeout
[ahmadreza@ahmadreza ~]$

I tested this problem on centos7 and successful operation Proxy problem or something else? If you need more documents, tell me and I will upload the article. I used Google Translate. I apologize if my words were vague or inappropriate :) os : archlinux **EDIT:** Is it possible that there is a problem with the certificate? Because there is no reason why sites like github.com should not come up, but a site like stackoverflow should come up!!! If so, how can I fix it?

Could someone please guide how to give life back to the RHEL host where I accidentally deleted lib* from / Now I can't run any command - I need to create links again as below:

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 9 Aug 12  2018 lib64 -> usr/lib64
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Aug 12  2018 lib -> usr/lib

How can I do this - I still have access to system and haven't rebooted as I know it will be gone once rebooted.

[root@srv01 lib64]# ls
-bash: /bin/ls: No such file or directory
[root@srv01 lib64]# mv
-bash: /bin/mv: No such file or directory
[root@srv01 lib64]# pwd
/usr/lib64
[root@srv01 lib64]# cd /usr/lib
[root@srv01 lib]# pwd
/usr/lib
[root@srv01 lib]#

Thanks in advance.

I have a .bin file that I would like to download, it's around 10GB in size. The file can be found here (any of the 4 download links): http://mazajak.inf.ed.ac.uk:8000/#embedding-page . When I download the file using wget or curl on a private server that I have, I get a 10GB file that is not a .bin file (does not have any extension), but if I click download on my local computer from the website, it clearly shows that it's downloading a .bin file. Any idea where I'm going wrong here? What I'm doing is right-clicking on the "download" hyperlink and pasting it infront of the wget/curl command. these are example commands I'm running:

http://mazajak.inf.ed.ac.uk:8000/get_sg_250 

curl -o http://mazajak.inf.ed.ac.uk:8000/get_sg_250 

I've already read up on the differences between /tmp and /var/tmp, so note that this is not what this question is about. When I create a file in /tmp, it shows up in /var/tmp; however, neither directory shows as a sym-link of the other: [root@l12662 /]# pwd; ll / total 32 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Aug 25 2017 bin -> usr/bin dr-xr-xr-x. 4 root root 4096 Aug 25 2017 boot drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 3560 Nov 18 23:32 dev ... drwxrwxrwt. 27 root root 4096 Nov 24 08:18 tmp ... [root@l12662 /]# cd /var [root@l12662 var]# ll total 12 drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 19 Mar 28 2017 account drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 6 Mar 10 2016 adm drwxr-xr-x. 10 root root 122 Aug 25 2017 cache ... drwxrwxrwt. 27 root root 4096 Nov 24 08:18 tmp ... How are they linked: [root@l12662 tmp]# pwd; ls | grep test /tmp [root@l12662 tmp]# ls /var/tmp/ | grep test [root@l12662 tmp]# pwd; touch test.me /tmp [root@l12662 tmp]# pwd; ls | grep test /tmp test.me [root@l12662 tmp]# ls /var/tmp/ | grep test test.me [root@l12662 tmp]# This is RHEL 7, btw: [root@l12662 tmp]# cat /etc/*release NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server" VERSION="7.4 (Maipo)" ID="rhel" ID_LIKE="fedora" VARIANT="Server" VARIANT_ID="server" VERSION_ID="7.4" PRETTY_NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7.4 (Maipo)"

Okay so I understand that this is a relatively Novice question about linux however in any case concerning hardlinks, If I create a hardlink to an existing file, then delete the original then the data is still saved under the new file correct? So then in that case when i created the second file did it actually increase the space used up on the hard drive? say we have file1 = original file2 = hardlink to file 1. when you instantiate file2 creating it does that increase the space used on the disk (meaning do you double the space used because you now have 2 nearly identical files, obviously i understand that they share the same inode and file2 requires a little space for it's metadata)? then when you are deleting the file the disk space is not truly recovered until the inode is freed correct? sorry about asking beginner questions I just need to get some things cleared up.

A bit of context that I think is relevant for the appropriate solution: I have a server that has two folders; one is ingest, the other is sorted. The source of the sorted folder is the ingest folder, all directories are unique, all files are hard links. The result of this is that when the ingest folder has a file deleted, it stays in the sorted folder, and vice versa. This makes cleanup almost impossible, as there are hundreds of thousands of files totaling about 40 terabytes. I have a script to add all links to a database, with their inode and path name. I can then use some SQL to find the inodes that only appear once, and decide whether or not I want to delete them. This solution is very slow (need to refresh the entire database every time I want to manage it) and quite clunky (need to run the query, then manually delete files over CLI). Is there a solution like ncdu or any dual-pane file browser that can show inodes, and filter specifically on number of links for the inode (as shown by stat)?

I'm pretty sure that once I was able to 1. press f, 2. then enter a number, 3. finally hit Enter, and the link opened in the browser (I use [qutebrowser](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/)) . This doesn't seem to work anymore, in that following the procedure above, step 3. doesn't trigger any reaction in the browser, just like I've done nothing at all. Unfortunately, I don't know since when, so I'd like some help in troubleshooting it. On the other hand, in-document links are followed just fine, so I think that zathura simply doesn't know (anymore) what application to forward those links to. Fwiw, I use i3 as window manager, no desktop manager.

I'd like to have keywords in textfiles opened with the text-editor Kate that when clicked jump to a specific line marked with a keyword of another textfile, usually open in another tab in Kate. --- Here is how I would imagine it to work: for example writing #co1 should become a clickable link (a colored tag-link) in Kate that when clicked opens a specified text file for that keyword - for example "~/Cooking.txt" - at a specific line. It would be best if one could specify the line it should link to like bookmarks...if the #tag is not in the list of tags one is prompted to specify the location and one can also set tags for lines in documents by pressing e.g. Ctrl+L and entering tag/s for the line. That other document may or may not be open in another tab of the current Kate session before clicking the link. There could also be features to show all lines or paragraphs with specified tags. ---- If that's not possible with Kate, I'm also interested in similar modern text-editors (that should work well under Debian10/KDE) if they have this feature. If it's possible to implement this with Kate but currently not implemented I'm interested in any further guidance on how to implement it. I was looking at the manual about writing syntax highlighting configs for Kate .

I recently updated from Debian Stretch to Buster. I first got aware I cannot open links from inside Rambox. I addressed an issue on GitHub but now I found out I cannot open links from inside PHPStorm and any other application either. I always get the following error message in a dialog box

-------------------- Error --------------------

 (-) /home/johndoe/https:/example.com/path/to/
     resource.php: No such file or directory

                                        [ Ok ]

As one can see there's always the path to my home directory placed in front of the link. I won't reinstall my system as a whole. --- **Edit (2019-08-18):** While it's an issue of the Desktop Environment I forgot to mention I'm using LXDE. --- **Edit (2019-08-19):** I found xdg-open which leads to the same error.

xdg-open https://example.com 

Lets say I have n files, a_1 to a_n, all hardlinked to each other. Additionally, I have m files, b_1 to b_m, hardlinked to each other (but not to the a_* files). What is the smartest way to point the b_* hardlinks to the a_* file? Iterate over b_1 and point each to a_1? Or is there a way to change the whole bunch together? How would I find all b_* files, knowing one of the b files? I.e. how do I find all other files hardlinked to a given file? Preferably in Python, without scanning the complete filesystem?

This is with Apache 2.4 webserver. I copied the hole site from one domain to another. Let us say from olddomain.com to newdomain.com/subdir/. The site is a webservice with news and advertisements. The site has the php application that is adverisement server. This application has many links to olddomain.com in the code, in config files etc. So links are to the old domain. These links are literal, not any relative. May I do anything to redirect all those link to the newdomain? I was thinking about something like .htaccess with redirection but in fact I have no idea to which folder place such a .htaccess. How to redirect links?