CrunchBang Linux

das88

Member

From: Berkeley, CA USA

Registered: 2010-04-05

Posts: 44

symbolic linking

Hi all,

I'm installing a pretty big program (mathematica) that has a very, very large store of reference materials (tutorials, example programs, documentation, etc.) that isn't necessary to run the program. I need to have the documentation around for reference so I can't get rid of it completely, but what I'd like to do is keep it somewhere else (like on a usb drive) and somehow make the program look there when I need it to. I've never used a symbolic link before but could I empty the documentation folder and make it a symbolic link to the actual location of the data? How might I do that?

Thanks!
Devin

Last edited by das88 (2010-04-07 03:16:36)

johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2009-01-07

Posts: 3,259

Website

Re: symbolic linking

Symlinks aren't hard once you get the idea (I had all kinds of problems at first)

First you need to  know the path to where the folder will be on your usb drive. If, for example, it was /media/disk/docs/mathematica/stuff and the path to where the program expects it to be was ~/.mathematica/stuff then you would move the "stuff" folder to the usb drive, then run this command to make a symlink in its place:

ln -s /media/disk/docs/mathematica/stuff ~/.mathematica/stuff

Of course, change the paths to what you actually need! The first path is where the symlink will point to (the actual file or folder), and the second one is where the new symlink will be put. If the folder at the end of the second path exists already the link will be put in it, if not a link will be created with that name. If you play around with it a bit you'll get it.

---

John     Please help us keep your forums manageable.
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( a boring Japan blog , idle twitterings  and GitStuff )
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das88

Member

From: Berkeley, CA USA

Registered: 2010-04-05

Posts: 44

Re: symbolic linking

Awesome, I'll try it out. Thanks for the quick reply John!