Just sharing something neat I learned today about Linux…

In Windows, I used to do this a lot:
– Be at a command prompt, in some directory, e.g.: C:\my files\more files
– When I need to see that same folder in the Windows GUI, I’d type: start . (note the period, meaning “this directory”)
– The Windows file manager would open in a new window, focused on that same folder as the path.

I realized today I didn’t know how to do that in Linux (I’m on Ubuntu) so I searched around and found the xdg-open command.

The man page for xdg-open says:

xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user’s preferred application. If a URL is provided the URL will be opened in the user’s preferred web browser.

At any terminal prompt, I type something like:

xdg-open .

or xdg-open ~/Documents

And boom! A new KDE Dolphin files window appears, focused on that path.

or this works too, but with a browser:

xdg-open http://eff.org

Rock and/or roll!

  • palordrolap
    2•11 months ago

    Users of GNOME-derived window managers might also want to look into the gio command that abstracts a lot of GUI things through the command line. Most of the functionality duplicates more basic commands, but these use the GUI’s API / behaviour where possible.

    The best example might be gio trash which can delete things to the desktop Rubbish/Recycle/Trash bin rather than vanish them completely as rm does.

    A pity there’s no xdg- wrapper that encompasses gio and whatever KDE and others do though. Maybe that’ll happen one day.