What's a filesystem anyway? A set of data structures that tell the system how the physical data storage on the disc is organized into files? The organizing principles that make it possible to store data in a predictable way, so it can be retrieved easily not just by one person but by many? A fruitless battle against entropy, as the established hierarchy gets overgrown, overthrown, and fragmented?

The next 11 chapters deal with this enormous subject, so central to the art of working with UNIX:

• How to get around the filesystem.

• How to use wildcards effectively to point to more than one file.

• How to find the files you've stored in the filesystem–using ls in all its forms.

• How to use find, the "power saw" of file search operations.

• How to link, rename, and copy files effectively.

• How to create archives for storing and moving many files.

• How and why to make backups–not just a job for the system administrator.

• Other miscellaneous hints about managing files.

• How file ownership works.

• How to remove files.

• Other ways to free up disk space.