Names Are Case-Sensitive
| Unlike Windows and Mac OS machines, Linux boxes are case-sensitive when it comes to filenames. You could find the three following files in the same directory on a computer running Linux:
To the Linux filesystem, those are three completely different files. If you were on Windows or Mac OS, however, you would be asked to rename or cancel your attempt to add BooksToBuy.txt to a directory that already contained bookstobuy.txt. Case-sensitivity also means that commands and filenames must be entered exactly to match their real command names or filenames. If you want to delete files by running rm, you can't type in RM or Rm or rM. rm is it. And if you want to delete bookstobuy.txt and you instead enter rm BooksToBuy.txt, you just removed the wrong file or no file at all. The lesson is twofold: Linux forces you to be precise, but precision is a good thing. At the same time, you're given a degree of flexibility that you won't find in other operating systems. That combination of required precision and flexibility is one of the things that makes Linux fun to use, yet understandably a bit confusing for new users. |
