So I realize this is a joke, but, and I am legit asking, isn't there a command where you can tell Linux to treat Downloads and downloads as the same thing?

TVA@thebrainbin.org · 30 pts · 345d (2 replies)

Maybe, but there is always the possibility that Downloads and downloads both exist in that path and in a case sensitive file system, those are going to be two completely different directories, so adding that obfuscation on top might wind up biting you later.

jonathan@piefed.social · 11 pts · 345d (1 reply)

That's where case-insensitive tab complete comes in. You can still tab through downloads and Downloads, and it doesn't impact anything else.

TVA@thebrainbin.org · 5 pts · 344d

Absolutely! That's probably the best compromise to make it easier without risking something breaking or not working as expected

oktoberpaard@piefed.social · 15 pts · 345d

In Bash you can use a shell option to alter this behavior: shopt -s nocaseglob. See https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/The-Shopt-Builtin.html for more options.

jdnewmil@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 345d

Sorta. If you put a FAT32 disk or sd card into a Linux system and mount it, it will ignore case because of the way the filenames are stored in that filesystem. However, there are a lot of important features you lose working on filesystems like that, so really it should be reserved for sneakernet with other operating systems.

BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz · 7 pts · 345d

Symlink ?

pressanykeynow@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 345d

You can use casefold option on ext4.

_stranger_@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 344d (1 reply)

ln -s downloads Downloads

ln -s Downloads downloads

depending on your situation.

nocturne@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 344d

Thank you. I thought I remembered using something like this back when I ran OpenSUSE and redhat years ago.

overload@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 344d

I've kind of just accepted this is one of the differences between Linux and Windows that we as users need to understand is OS-specific.

communism@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 344d

I guess you could use an ntfs filesystem... Or if you just mean for autocompletion, I've found that if there's no completions matching e.g. readme then zsh will autocomplete README. But I'd say case sensitivity of files is a feature not a bug. People use it to make files starting with a capital letter appear at the top of a list of files in a directory.

pelle@veganism.social · 3 pts · 345d

@nocturne
if you use #fishshell, it'll autocomplete to "Downloads"

iveseenthat@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 343d

ln -s Dowloads downloads

angband@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 344d

alias downloads="cd ~/Downloads"

edit: but if you want to get freaky in bash, alias downloads="pushd ~/Downloads"

probably works in some other shells too

frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 344d

I once got into it with a dev who had written an Arduino library. I reported a compile bug, and he said my environment must be broken. In fact, it was because the headers in the library were set for #include 'arduino.h', not Arduino.h. Which would work fine on the default settings for Windows and Mac, but not Linux.

Randelung@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 345d (4 replies)

$ ln -s ~/Downloads downloads

~~You can even hard link it if you feel fancy.~~

KickMeElmo@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 345d (2 replies)

You can't hardlink directories on a standard *nix filesystem. NTFS has that in the form of Junctions and it's likely made more messes than it has prevented.

Randelung@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 345d

Ah, yes, my bad. Need a file for hard links.

jim3692@discuss.online · 2 pts · 345d

I have yet to see anyone brave enough, to mount /home to NTFS

ViaFedi@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 345d

$ ln -s ~/Downloads downloads

ln -s is a symlink. You’re better off editing user-dirs.dirs anyway

_stranger_@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 344d

It's pronounced "Data".

mazzilius_marsti@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 345d (3 replies)

alias downloads='Downloads'

alias Downloads='downloads'

icelimit@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 345d

What was the new one? Pay respects?

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 344d (1 reply)

Oh shit, I've never thought to do this... Would this work? Or are aliases only for commands?

palordrolap@fedia.io · 4 pts · 344d

This wouldn't work.

Well, it kind of would if you did alias downloads="cd Downloads" but then you wouldn't cd downloads you'd just type downloads on its own.

As other comments here already point out, you can do it with a symlink if you really want it. i.e. ln -s Downloads downloads, then you can cd downloads.

Nowhere near the same as making everything effectively case insensitive, but it works for the odd one that you always mistype.

There are ways to patch command completion and/or write a variant cd that does the job intelligently too, but those are harder work.

Day-late edit that no-one will see: The answer is bind "set completion-ignore-case on". It's embarrassing how simple this is and how long it took me to find it. I may have been trying to emulate this feature in other ways for a long time.

ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online · 8 pts · 344d

I ran into that same issue. When case sensitive stuff hits for rhe first time.

Also I love linux's cmd line. I grew up on MS-DOS and I feel like the computer hacker that I always dreamed I would be.

CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org · 8 pts · 345d

try out zoxide

fleebleneeble@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 345d

HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 343d

crossdresser downloads? Don't mind if I do!

sircac@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 344d

My home is so populated of symlinks of similar namings: capital leters, other languages,...