Ubuntu – How to create a zip archive of a whole directory via terminal without hidden files

As you note in the comments you now know how to change directory with your script, I'll explain the situation with zip regarding relative paths.

It is probably easiest to open terminal and cd to kit123; you have to make the target directory your working directory- you can't run the command from the base of your home directory or it will pick up all the paths of /home/$USER/.. If you use the -j option, it will strip out all paths, as there isn't really an equivalent of the tar option --strip with which different levels of path removal can be specified.

So please cd to your target directory (kit123) and enter:

zip -r kit123.zip *

This will recursively (-r) preserve all (*) files and directories of files in the current directory (kit123), and as relative paths (-p) are preserved automatically unless the -j option is present, the directory structure will be as you wished. Kit123 and subfolders (kitpart1) with their own files will be present:

kit123
    kitpart1
        file.xcf
        anotherfile.xcf
    kitpart2

You can check the contents of the zip file with unzip -l zipfile.zip.

For more information on the other options available for zip, see man zip and the Ubuntu manpage online.

Use the following (as root, or with sudo if not root):

mkhomedir_helper username

For this to work, folder /home/username must not exist.

For X-related folders (Desktop, Downloads, etc), you will need to login in a graphics environment; they will be automatically generated the first time you login.