dont forget on some phones OS, you can actually pick and choose the download location. After you downloaded though, the files arent there…
Had to question my sanity many times…
I thought I was losing it because this app wanted to save things to a “downloads” folder. Only to find out it saves it in something like
documents/app name/downloads Instead of
Downloads/
Android? you mean iphone maybe. i can directly access the file directory of Android both from an app or from my PC with a USB connection.
That file directory is a hot mess, though.
yeah, i figure I’d kill myself if my PC was structured like that. but for a phone it does the job and if you need something it’s not that hard to find it really.
I mean, your phone (or at least mine) has Documents, Downloads, Photos etc. just like windows (and linux) have. The Android folder is akin to windows’s AppData folder too, there is a lot of overlap in folder structures imo
I use a little app called X-plore. Gives me treed lists of folder contents and allows moving, copying, and deleting stuff.
Total Commander with LAN, FTP and WebDAV Plugin enabled is really useful (if you’re using Android)
Bit by bit? The move to mobile was like getting hit in the face with an inaccessibility bat. I hate mobile OSes with a passion. Unfortunately, they’re overwhelmingly the way through which people interact with the Internet or do any kind of tech stuff anymore. I do a lot of audio work, and Android lacks even simple routing software. It just uses the last audio device plugged into it. Never mind you only want to use the mic on that and not the output. Forget using multiple devices. It’s infuriating. You’ll pry my desktop away from me through my cold, dead hands.
Sounds like you should install Ubuntu touch on your phone
Doesn’t work on all devices though
Then install linage OS or get a fair phone 4
_
Don’t you know? Users being told the exact location of a file is not user-friendly!
There are not files. There are only vibes. If your surf the vibe ocean well enough, you will find what you were looking for.
How is you not even aware of what a file system is LMAO 🤣
I swear to God, how is it possible that people who can access the fediverse have such trouble finding a download folder.
It’s like their brains fold instantly at the thought of searching through it.
“Hurr durr, where file”
In the downloads folder
My brother in Christ, please open the fucking file explorer
This is you, it’s how you look like:
That’s the entire point of the post, my guy. Some apps use the Downloads folder. Some use their own. Some use a folder you set a year ago when you first got the app but don’t remember anymore.
The interface abstracts away from the actual file system so finding a file becomes guesswork. Doubly so if you then want to use the downloaded file in a different app that also doesn’t give access to the file system.
perhaps OP thinks you’re a goof if you don’t invest in a proprietary software stack.
I miss when computers did what you wanted them to do and not what the corporation wants you to do.
Sorry, best we can offer is renaming Control Panel again and shuffling around the place you can find certain settings
We call it Linux.
obviously
Android is built in the Linux kernel. That’s actually some of what causes this - Android’s permissions model takes the Linux model and amplifies it. Apps are treated like users to prevent them from messing with each other’s files. If an app uses Android’s downloads manager it can write to the downloads directory, but it can only see the files that it put there.
deleted by creator
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I really lost my shit when Firefox downloaded some Belfort & Lupin subtitles and I could not for the fucking live of me find them.
Turns out it put them in the “Movies” folder instead of “Downloads” where it actually put the corresponding video files.
sounds like your pitiful mind cant understand the unix file oriented philosophy and you should stay 10 feet away from all information technology /sarcasm
Technology and sarcasm?!?!
I’ve got a bad feeling this might catch on…
Luckily, we technology enthusiasts are all special snowflakes and don’t engage in anything as banal as copying other people.
Luckily, we technology enthusiasts are all special snowflakes and don’t engage in anything as banal as copying other people and sarcasm :)
Luckily, we technology enthusiasts are all special snowflakes and don’t engage in anything as banal as copying other people and sarcasm :) :)
I’m never sarcastic.
Well said, o7
now look here you little… oh actually it would be nice to get away from tech honestly…
It has very little to do with unix philosophy
yo that’s the joke i was making XD
I can find files just fine on my Android phone, BUT when saving files on my iPad this meme would be true.
I was editing a document on my iPad, saved it in a folder labeled ‘documents’, searched with the files app and the document folder wasn’t on my iPad or iCloud.
Come to find out the app itself made a folder named documents within itself. So in order to get it on my iPad itself i had to share the file to dropbox then redownload it 🤨
Same, I always have trouble with finding saved files on ipad/iphone. Often it saves a pdf as “document”, and overwrites the previous download with similar name.
That’s annoying. I have not yet had the displeasure of experiencing the overwrite problem, but i am sure it’ll happen soon enough. Thanks for the heads-up!
Yeah, developers can’t access those folders without some super specific permissions, so most just use the dedicated app folder.
I have learned the horrors of Apple since getting this thing. Like it for drawing and 3D sculpting, but that’s about it.
You should see how much developing for apple hurts when using a multiplatform ecosystem.
In Flutter for example, there are entire documentation sections on “Apple is incredibly stupid and needs special care”
Ohhhhh yes. Flutter + Apple has tested my will to live multiple times.
I can only imagine how painful it is for those developers
Oh, so you are a grass trainer? Why, I often roleplay as a Shaymin
How many gym badges you got??
Why would I have gym badges?!?
Home puter is a Mac which I only use for the Logic DAW but they have a primary app called Finder which has never found anything I asked for. Its a Finder that doesnt Find.
F
Meanwhile Windows; Hi, you saved a file earlier? Let’s search for it. Nope, can’t find it, do you want to search Bing? No? [A few minutes later] Ooo, so sorry you’re offline and can’t download it. Too bad.
Ios; you want to open the file in an app? OK, click 7 buttons and we’ll make a local copy stored in the app’s specific folder you didn’t know existed.
Chrome; what’s a file?
Linux; which file browser would you like to use today?
Windows is more like, oh that file you saved earlier? Yeah we moved that to OneDrive. You want it back? Sorry didn’t pay your OneDrive subscription fee, so you don’t actually have that file anymore. Hope it wasn’t something irreplaceable like your kid’s baby photos or anything lol.
Hope it wasn’t something irreplaceable like your kid’s baby photos or anything lol.
To make things worse, if your kid’s baby photos get uploaded and wrongly trigger their CSAM AI scanner, then you get reported to the police as a pedophile, and your account gets nuked. Google was literally caught doing this, microsoft is probably doing the same.
Just more infinite wisdom of idiot nosy companies. this minute clip perfectly summarizes it
I use Windows and have never encountered what you are describing.
none of my files have ever been ‘moved’ to OneDrive and none of my files that are on OneDrive have ever been locked behind a paywall.
If you save some files on the desktop or documents, and OneDrive activates it’s backups later, it will forcefully move your files to the cloud.
And if you’re not a paying customer and have gigabytes of data, it will shit itself midway to bark at you to pay up because your free 5Gb is up.
Now, a normal, regarded dumbass (the target audience) would just pay the tax, but if you have an IQ above that of average coral reef you can take your data back by quitting onedrive, copying everything back, and disabling onedrive backup.
Well we all know OneDrive cost money but like you get 5 or 10GB free, and even then if you go over I’m 99% sure those files just stay on your PC.
But the moving files thing feels real. I remember testing out Fedora one time with a classmate who was trying to convince me to switch, and for some reason, even though I direct all downloads to the download folder, it was in my OneDrive somehow. So when my VM tried installing the iso, it was taking a million years to pull it from OneDrive.
Similarly, I didn’t realize my Documents folder was backed up on the Cloud, so I had to find the dumbass settings to turn off backups for documents and other shit besides pictures. This is one of those moments where I understand why Linux users love a CLI, because Microsoft’s menus are stupid to navigate sometimes.
The worst offender that I never managed to figure out was my ShareX files. It would save locally, but then switch to OneDrive for no reason, so my config and shortcuts would be lost, and the auto backups would also be lost. I fought with that thing for months, and only gave up cause I moved to Fedora Silverblue, in which Linux unfortunately has no app that is nearly as good as ShareX.
I often see people saying stuff like this that I never run into. I wonder if the difference is whether your OS is tied to a Microsoft account or not. I used an exploit to bypass the account requirement when I set up Windows 11.
It’s exactly that.
When you login with a microsoft account it also logs you into onedrive. by default onedrive starts up at boot time, and also by default it backs up the main folders of your PC (documents, desktop, pictures, etc.)
It can all be turned off, but the fact it’s opt out its cancerous. The only thing I use onedrive for is to store my offsite 3-2-1 backup. It’s encrypted beforehand with rclone.
You are just making shit up 🤣
Just pathetic stuff, missing up stories to simp for an OS.
Linux:
ls
cd directory
ls
cd directory2
ls
cd directory3 …
Oh boy do I have a
treeto sell youOn linux you don’t search, you
findThat’s a good one :)
Linux
the default one that comes with every distro and opens by default when i want to find files.
its only a problem if you fiddle with installing more file browsers, as with any os really.
Use a system indexer like Listary or Everything and you never have to worry about finding a file ever again, just type its name and it’ll be the first result
Everything is fantastic. Plus it can be integrated (somewhat) into Classic Shell’s search.
Funni, cause the comment below from AstralPath and lightnsfw tells a different story
Not my fault they choose to Linux on hard mode :p
Yeah, it can be hard to find files sometimes. File Navigator solves this problem perfectly.
Solid Explorer has always been my go to. I never understood why basic file explorer functions essentially required the use of a separate app, but it’s functionality is superb and the now-baked-in-but-terrible file explorer in android can never hope to match it.
If you think about it, its always a separate app. WIndows Explorer is an app and so is Dolphin on KDE.
lsis an app.
Android just has a bit of an identity problem with how to present files. Considering its made for the most common denominator, and everything revolves around ‘apps’ now, the concept of files, what they are and what they do is new to many. Most people wont even consider the photo they took is a file. Its a photo, not a file, what are you talking about?. So I’m not surprised the representation of files is on the lower priority list.
I’m old school, I want to know where everything is in the file system and this part of android messes with me.“Akshually, photo is not a file” is how iOS did it. Blew my mind when I tried to sync my files (Syncthing/Möbius) and it would not show any of the photos in file lists. Apparently it’s for “security reasons”.
This was several years ago so IDK if it’s the same still.
I guess I meant that it shouldn’t require a 3rd party app. When I discovered and began using Solid Explorer, there wasn’t even a viable system app for file management in Android, you had to use a 3rd party app. They did eventually add a system app, but it’s next to useless.
Oh, Samsung has a files app. I just assumed all vendors provide one. I dont consider this third party though.
I guess it would be similar if you used GNOME and it didnt come with the app ‘Files’. Linux isnt a desktop so there wouldnt be any system app for files either, just the CLI. Does stock Android provide a system files app? I cant find it.I’m using a Samsung device now as well, but as I recall, my last Pixel phone did have a very basic files app. But stock Android didn’t always - I was using ES File Explorer and eventually Solid Explorer on my HTC phones back in the day to restore basic functionality.
I prefer Material Files.
Can’t get the save file from some android games anymore. 🤷♂️
One of these days, they’ll add a censorship chip into every consumer electronic.
you likely can with another file manager like Amaze
You still can’t write into it, which means you can’t continue off a save file from another phone.
I suspect this is to make piracy harder. A lot of paid mobile games (Ported from PC) seems to want you to use Google’s cloud these days.
The only exception is like Stardew Valley, where they put the save directory in a normal folder. Every other game make it impossible to move your saves.
Heck, Into The Breach is even locked to Netflix. You need a fucking Netflix subscription for that. No thanks lol, I’ll enjoy my illegal download. (I have to type in a cheat code to unlock the stuff every time I set up a new phone, but its a roguelike, so not much data is lost anyways)
I think you can use ADB to access those folders
You typically won’t have permission to write them with ADB.
“The only exception is like Stardew Valley, where they put the save directory in a normal folder.”
It’s been years since I played Stardew Valley, but stuff like this is why I consider myself a fan.
It’s almost as if this is a computer architecture designed for idiots who don’t know or care what a file is or for what purposes their data is being harvested. Everywhere I hear people falling over themselves to declare that the tablet smartphone was apple’s golden gift to the world. Try to do any serious work on one, it’s fucking annoying.
Whenever we make technology accessible to stupid people it becomes irritating to use and a privacy nightmare.
It’s almost as if this is a computer architecture designed for
idiotshuman beings whodon’t know or care what a file isinteract with computers on a non-file oriented basis or have been lied to and systemically unsupported in their education for what purposes their data is being harvested.No hate. No useful conversation starts with calling large swaths of people idiots, is all.
I really do wish that more packages on Linux had installation paths clearly noted in a readme.
I’ve been using Linux daily for over a year now and I still have a hard time tracking down config files and install paths. Its just not one of those tasks I do regularly so I always forget best practices when trying to find stuff. The CLI always gives me the best results but getting the commands right can be tedious.
I’ve started saving useful commands in a note on my desktop.
i just give up after a couple of minutes if it isn’t somewhere obvious and then search my whole system with grep lmao.
how wonderful to live in a world where compute is so cheap.
Amateur. I read the source on GitHub to see where it’s saving that shit.
Which readme?
The one on the github that has out of date instructions and tells you to check the discord?
The 6 year out-of-date one on your distro’s wiki?
or The gnu-info/manpage that is only for the original upstream and doesn’t tell you where all the files have been moved or that half of the software isn’t actually installed since it was split out into extra packages for justdebianthings
To be honest, sounds like you aren’t using arch btw. Jk I have the same issues on arch
Do I really need to remind this is free software made by benevolent developers? I get it it’s infuriating but it’s still in some way a gift you were given and seem unhappy with.
There is a lot of entitlement around free software. People expecting free things, often written in someone’s spare time, to be really polished just don’t understand I guess. On top of that, good documentation is hard to write and sometimes it’s a completely different skill than writing the software itself.
If you give me a 1000 piece puzzle for free, but without the instructions or a box picture to go off of, you’ve done a nice thing by gifting me something but have also failed miserably as I’ll never fuckin solve that puzzle
Terrible analogy honestly. Feel free to not use this software, nobody will ever force you to use it.
This is not software to entertain you. It’s a tool that you don’t understand how to use and choose to blame the people building it for free.
It’s a tool that you don’t understand how to use and choose to blame the people
building it for freefailing to properly document their tool.Ftfy
Just because it’s provided free doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for not telling people how it works, dumbass
Why so hostile and the name calling…? They’re saying it’s a lot of work for oftentimes a single person to do. That’s just the truth.
You’re a fantastic idiot if that’s what you actually think. That’s not what they’re saying nor relevant to the discussion at all
People can say what they want about Windows, having stuff installed in a folder called Program Files with sub folders using the brand/program name is so much simpler than whatever the fuck is going on on Linux.
For user specific files a lot of modern programs try to adhere to https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/. You should set those environmental variables and check there first.
For system level… it’s definitely more complicated. I check
/etcfirst and then then/usrdirs. If you’re using your system package manager there is generally a way to query it for that information, but it’s typically CLI based.Or just use our lord and savior NixOS and configure everything in a single directory
Until an app decides to install in the hidden AppData folder with the confusing sub-folder names, or even the root of the user folder, or god forbid in a folder in the root of the C drive
Local, LocalLow, Roaming really are confusing names ngl, but %AppData% isn’t really hidden.
It’s funny because it seems like it’s all just familiarity with conventions on both platforms. I’ve used Linux for around 15 years and I’m completely lost trying to find anything on a Windows computer.
It’s hidden enough that I have had to provide tech support to my friends a few times on this. I think it’s easy to forget how expertise shapes our perspective on these things
Also the two Program Files folders that have existed since the switch to 64-bit systems.
And third-party software installers that install stuff into their own secret places. Like Steam games.
I don’t remember seeing something get installed in appdata, but having other files it depends on in there sure does happen though
I’ve seen Electron based apps do this sometimes. GitHub Desktop, for instance
Oh right, it’s the only one I’ve seen doing it. You still get the prompt to ask where you want to install it and it just needs to not be in Program Files or you need to give it administrator access so it can update itself…
It’s pretty ridiculous
WinXP times are long gone, my friend. These days I will sooner dig out where vim plugin source code resides on Linux than figure out config file location for a fucking game on Windows
dpkg -L package-nameOr the inverse
dpkg -S /usr/bin/somefileFor apt based distros, obviously.
This does not return all “config files and install paths” as it only ever considers files that came in the package, not files created by the package (such as /etc/samba.smb.conf, which is created during installation), so doesn’t actually solve the problem.
That limitation should’ve been made clear in the advice itself so as not to send users that don’t know better down dead ends, though the subsequent discussion between this and the previous user is a great illustration of how the way some give Linux “advice” just ends up frustrating those seeking advice.
(It even eventually frustrated me because over the years I’ve had to teach plenty of junior developers to not give advice like that, only they’re seldom so bad that they insist they actually know what the other person wants even in the face of a user providing proof that they do not)
I just tried this with Samba (so
dpkg -L sambaanddpkg -S samba, and I also tried addinggrep "smb.conf"and running it with sudo) and I was unable to find the share config file.It’s located under
/etc/samba/smb.confbut that command was returning a path under my local user. This is on Ubuntudpkg -Srequires a full path like the example I gave.dpkg -L sambashould work fine. What is the error you got?No error or anything, but it just doesn’t have the
/etc/samba/smb.conffile. Just doesn’t have it.dpkg -S sambadoes find/usr/share/samba/smb.confwhich isn’t the right file either.This is a good argument for shipping an empty config file.
Your point stands, but this also isn’t completely unintuitive. There is pattern there: you installed
sambaand the config is in/etc/samba/. System level installs will almost always install their config in/etc/and the sub directory will typically match the name somewhat.There is likely a general thought that if you’re going to administer a samba server, you’ll also be comfortable with conventions and man pages. Although, funnily enough, in the particular case of
samba,man smb.confdoesn’t show the path lolThat’s the thing though, when you install Samba it does create an empty config file at
\etc\samba\smb.conf, or at least I’ve never created oneI see why it does this now. Debian does
CONFIG=/etc/samba/smb.conf # stuff ucf --three-way --debconf-ok /usr/share/samba/smb.conf "$CONFIG"in the
postinitinside the.debfile to create the/etc/samba/smb.conffile. They do it this way so they don’t nuke an already created file. I take back that they should be shipping an empty file, this way is better, but it also means you’ll never be able to query it without some changes to the packaging tools.The man page should mention the path though that’s a bit lame.
You’re confusing the command again
-L, --listfiles package-name... List files installed to your system from package-name. -S, --search filename-search-pattern... Search for a filename from installed packages.dpkg -S /my/file/pathFinds which, installed, package installed the file.
dpkg -L samba | grep .confGreps through the list of files installed by a given package.
If the file you want isn’t in there then it wasn’t installed by the package itself (could be created on the fly by the binary for example), in which case obviously the package system can’t track it.
Oh I see, this command didn’t really do what I wanted it to do then. I just wanted to be able to see the locations of any files associated with a program. If I knew the file path I could just find them haha
dpkg -L PACKAGE_NAMEdoes what you want. In my initial reply I mentioned thatdpkg -Sis the inverse.
You might want to look into the locate package (it might be called mlocate) if you can’t find a file. It can be helpful.
As a long time linux user, I think all programs should have a config gui. (Not all, but you get what I mean)
I think it should be GUI config or detailed man page/readme. The amount of assumed end-user knowledge by devs is way too high.
I’ve started saving useful commands in a note on my desktop.
Great idea
hard time tracking down config files
Usually under ~/.config/<app> or ~/.local/share/<app>
Often also in /etc/
Or ~/.<app>
Every time I touch a config file/setting I document it in my notes. I would be lost without it.
I usually start inotifywatch with read events, open the program, close it and see what inotifywatch dumped.
Suprised nobody said to use whereis xyz
It used to be so much simpler. I remember having a Galaxy S3 and whenever I saved a file I knew exactly where it went. There was a file explorer built in, and downloads went to the downloads folder.
Is that not how it still works? When I download a file, it either goes straight to the Downloads folder, or to an app-specific subfolder within Downloads. And there’s a Files app that lets you go through the file system (although I’m sure there are some system folders that aren’t accessible without rooting). I don’t think I’ve ever been confused about where a file is saved.
Thats my experience too.
i think there’s lots of different flavors of android or something, such that different phones handle the user-facing file system totally differently. it might also be that nicer phones the devs put more effort into making UX have a more forgiving learning curve but because android isn’t truly open source those developments are inaccessible to other users
That was Samsung doing the work of dumbing things down for you. Stock Android has always been fast and loose with the locality of saved files. Especially if you are doing anything with an image processing app. They tend to make their own dump folders and don’t bother telling you that they e made them in their own directory under the .data folder or someplace in .bin
You say ‘dumbing things down’ I say ‘that’s kinda condescending talk that implies that anything else isn’t shut when it clearly is’
My 2022 android still has a file explorer. But it seems to randomly drop files all over into multiple download folders it created
Literally exactly how it still works.
