Hi Folks, Something's happened whilch puzzles me a bit; and also I don't know how I should deal with it. What I did: 1: Insert a USB stick that I wanted to delete the files on. When it's Icon appeared on the Gnome desktop, I opened that. I could see the files stored on the USB stick, but the menu for each file (right-click on file icon) offered no explicit option to delete it, except "Move to Wastebasket". So, for each file I did that. 2: I then unmounted the USB stick, removed it, and opened the Wastebasket (to empty the files out of that). There I found two Icons: A: "Ted's Downloads" [folder] B: "Ted's Downloads (Copy") [folder] I have no idea how they got there. When I look in them, they contain the files which are in my real "Ted's Downloads" folder. Some of these were on the USB stick too, but only a few of them. My Dilemma: I do NOT want to destroy the real "Ted's Downloads". However, the only vaguely relevant Menu option I can find is "Empty Wastebasket". Presumably, this would destroy the real "Ted's Downloads" folder, since apparently that (with its full current contents) is apparently now in the Wastebasket, though still accessible both from its own Desktop icon and from the command line. If, in the command line from /home/ted, I do: $ ls -l .Trash total 4 drwxr-xr-x 2 ted ted 4096 2008-09-17 20:42 Ted's Downloads lrwxrwxrwx 1 ted ted 19 2008-09-17 20:52 Ted's Downloads (copy) -> /home/ted/Downloads and: $ ls -l Desktop total 8 drwxr-x--- 2 ted ted 4096 2007-10-30 17:07 Downloads -rw------- 1 ted ted 474 2007-09-22 23:29 Google-googleearth.desktop lrwxrwxrwx 1 ted ted 19 2008-09-17 21:35 Ted's Downloads -> /home/ted/Downloads What I want to do: Get "Ted's Downloads" out of the Wastebasket (if it's really there ... ) without destroying it, so that in future I can move other files to the Wastebasket and "Empty Wastebasket" without destroying "Ted's Downloads". And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash). Any ideas, comments? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Nov-08 Time: 18:43:57 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
2008/11/22 Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk>:
And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash).
Any ideas, comments?
Your USB stick will have its own Trash. I discovered this when I thought I had made some space on a stick by 'deleting' all the files, but they were all hiding in Trash. This behaviour will confuse Windows users who are used to only real hard disks having recycling bins. Tim.
On 22-Nov-08 20:50:51, Tim Green wrote:
2008/11/22 Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk>:
And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash).
Any ideas, comments?
Your USB stick will have its own Trash. I discovered this when I thought I had made some space on a stick by 'deleting' all the files, but they were all hiding in Trash. This behaviour will confuse Windows users who are used to only real hard disks having recycling bins.
Tim.
Thanks, Tim! That solves that part of the puzzle. (I hadn't spotted it because that trash-bin is /media/usbdisk/.Trash-ted, so it didn't show up by default until I selected "View all files"). Those files now deleted from .Trash-ted, though I've left the directory in place since I'll need it in the future. Now for my other (and main) query: How do I *harmlessly* remove my folders Downloads and "Ted's Downloads" from the main trash-bin (/home/test/.Trash)? I want them out of that .Trash, but I *do* want to keep them where they properly are: /home/ted/Downloads and /home/ted/Ted's" "Downloads -> /home/ted/Downloads If I 'cd' into /home/ted/.Trash and then do 'rm *', will I remove the true directories, or would I simply delete some symbolic links, leaving the real ones in place (though when I do 'ls -l /home/ted/.Trash' they don't show up as symbolic links)? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Nov-08 Time: 22:42:16 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On 22 Nov 22:42, Ted Harding wrote:
On 22-Nov-08 20:50:51, Tim Green wrote:
2008/11/22 Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk>:
And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash).
Any ideas, comments?
Your USB stick will have its own Trash. I discovered this when I thought I had made some space on a stick by 'deleting' all the files, but they were all hiding in Trash. This behaviour will confuse Windows users who are used to only real hard disks having recycling bins.
Tim.
Thanks, Tim! That solves that part of the puzzle. (I hadn't spotted it because that trash-bin is /media/usbdisk/.Trash-ted, so it didn't show up by default until I selected "View all files"). Those files now deleted from .Trash-ted, though I've left the directory in place since I'll need it in the future.
Now for my other (and main) query: How do I *harmlessly* remove my folders Downloads and "Ted's Downloads" from the main trash-bin (/home/test/.Trash)?
I want them out of that .Trash, but I *do* want to keep them where they properly are: /home/ted/Downloads and /home/ted/Ted's" "Downloads -> /home/ted/Downloads
If I 'cd' into /home/ted/.Trash and then do 'rm *', will I remove the true directories, or would I simply delete some symbolic links, leaving the real ones in place (though when I do 'ls -l /home/ted/.Trash' they don't show up as symbolic links)?
The stuff in Trash is real files, what happens is that when you delete things rather than them actually being deleted in effect a rename is performed (actually, IIRC, what happens is a hardlink is created then the origional file deleted). So, removing from Trash, would, in theory at least, remove them entirely from the disk. Cheers, -- Brett Parker
On 23-Nov-08 15:47:09, Brett Parker wrote:
On 22 Nov 22:42, Ted Harding wrote:
On 22-Nov-08 20:50:51, Tim Green wrote:
2008/11/22 Ted Harding <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk>:
And: NO, I did not find any of the files I "Moved to Wastebasket" from the USB stick where I would have expcted to, namely at the top level of Wastebasket (i.e. Trash).
Any ideas, comments?
Your USB stick will have its own Trash. I discovered this when I thought I had made some space on a stick by 'deleting' all the files, but they were all hiding in Trash. This behaviour will confuse Windows users who are used to only real hard disks having recycling bins.
Tim.
Thanks, Tim! That solves that part of the puzzle. (I hadn't spotted it because that trash-bin is /media/usbdisk/.Trash-ted, so it didn't show up by default until I selected "View all files"). Those files now deleted from .Trash-ted, though I've left the directory in place since I'll need it in the future.
Now for my other (and main) query: How do I *harmlessly* remove my folders Downloads and "Ted's Downloads" from the main trash-bin (/home/test/.Trash)?
I want them out of that .Trash, but I *do* want to keep them where they properly are: /home/ted/Downloads and /home/ted/Ted's" "Downloads -> /home/ted/Downloads
If I 'cd' into /home/ted/.Trash and then do 'rm *', will I remove the true directories, or would I simply delete some symbolic links, leaving the real ones in place (though when I do 'ls -l /home/ted/.Trash' they don't show up as symbolic links)?
The stuff in Trash is real files, what happens is that when you delete things rather than them actually being deleted in effect a rename is performed (actually, IIRC, what happens is a hardlink is created then the origional file deleted). So, removing from Trash, would, in theory at least, remove them entirely from the disk.
Cheers, -- Brett Parker
Ahh!! Incandescent exclamation mark appears above my head! "hard link" had been my blind spot (I was trying to suss out how Trash works). So the solution turns out to be simple: 1: Set up a new hard link to the file in .Trash from where it's supposed to be 2: Delete the entry in .Trash Done and dusted. Thanks! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 23-Nov-08 Time: 16:18:55 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On 23 Nov 16:19, Ted Harding wrote:
Ahh!! Incandescent exclamation mark appears above my head! "hard link" had been my blind spot (I was trying to suss out how Trash works).
So the solution turns out to be simple:
1: Set up a new hard link to the file in .Trash from where it's supposed to be 2: Delete the entry in .Trash
Just for your info, mv does this if the files are on the same partition. (in the case that they're not it does a copy and then an unlink of the origional). Cheers, -- Brett Parker
participants (3)
-
Brett Parker -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Tim Green