Linux File Copying

Introduction

In the quaint village of Cyberton nestled in the magical valley of Hexania, renowned for its high-peaked mountains and enchanting forests, lives a mystical farmer named Eldric. As legend has it, Eldric possesses the unique ability to grow enchanted data-trees that bear fruits in the form of data-files. However, Eldric faces a challenge; he needs to duplicate the fruits of knowledge before the Great Data Harvest to spread the wisdom across the land.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to assist Eldric in copying the precious data-files from one location to another using the ancient and powerful tool known as cp, honing this fundamental skill within the Linux realm. Will you take on the task and become an adept spellcaster of file manipulation?

Skills Graph

Preparing the Enchanted Garden

In this step, you will set up Eldric's magical working directory in preparation for the Great Data Harvest. Begin by creating an enchanted directory called data-garden. Within this directory, you will plant seeds that grow into sample data-files.

First, navigate to the ~/project directory before you start sowing the seeds:

cd ~/project

Then, create the data-garden directory and a few sample files to represent the data-fruits:

mkdir data-garden
cd data-garden
touch apple.txt orange.txt grape.txt

These files are empty for now, as they are just budding fruits. Explain to Eldric that patience is essential as they will soon be filled with content.

Copying the Single Fruit of Knowledge

In this step, you will help Eldric perform his first act of magic by copying one of the data-file-fruits named apple.txt to a new path, ensuring the wisdom within is duplicated for the villagers.

While in the data-garden directory, use the cp command to copy the apple.txt to the upper directory:

cp apple.txt ../apple_copy.txt

Be sure to explain to Eldric that this command has taken the apple.txt and replicated its essence, creating a new file outside the data-garden.

Widely Spreading Multiple Fruits of Wisdom

For this step, guide Eldric in the mass duplication of all the data-file-fruits. You will use the cp command to copy several files all at once to a new directory named village-archive.

Navigate back to the project directory and create a new directory:

cd ~/project
mkdir village-archive

Now perform the mass duplication spell by copying all *.txt files from data-garden to village-archive:

cp data-garden/*.txt village-archive/

Eldric will be thrilled to see his whole harvest copied at once for the benefit of his fellow villagers.

Summary

In this lab, you embarked on a whimsical journey to assist the magic farmer Eldric in mastering the ancient Linux spell of cp for duplicating his enchanted data-file-fruits. Through engaging with a captivating fantasy scenario, we covered the basics of file copying, directory navigation, and mass duplication of files. The designed tasks were meant to be simple and informative, ensuring that beginners grasp the fundamentals of file manipulation in a Linux environment. My hope is that as you've unraveled the mysteries of the cp command, you've found joy in the creativity of the lab and honed your skills to confidently cast Linux commands in your future endeavors.