I'm wondering if there is a difference between going to a terminal and typing ln -s path 'path or just right clicking on something and selecting make link.
Ubuntu – difference between a symbolic link via terminal or right-click make link
filesystemnautilussymbolic-link
Related Solutions
FYI, I was having the same issue. In my case, it appears to be caused by a faulty mount point somewhere in my FS tree.
Specifically, the culprit was a samba mount (cifs) that failed due to me losing VPN. As nautilus mentions these under 'Network' in the left sidebar, I'm guessing this caused it to hang. As a work-around I remounted all my volumes (sudo mount -a) and now nautilus is responsive again.
In Linux/Unix, Shortcuts are known as Links
Links are of two types: soft links (symbolic links) or hard links.
Soft Links (symbolic links)
You can make links to files and directories, and you can create links (shortcuts) on different partitions and with a different inode number than the original.
If the real copy is deleted, the link will not work.
Hard Links
Hard links are for files only; you cannot link to a file on a different partition with a different inode number.
If the real copy is deleted, the link will work, because it accesses the underlying data which the real copy was accessing.
Question: How do I make soft link?
Answer: A soft link can be made with ln -s; first you need to define the source and then you need to define the destination. (Keep in mind you need to define the full paths of both source and destination; otherwise it will not work.)
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1
(----------Source-------) ( Destination )
As you can see it has a different inode and can be made on a different partition.
Question: How do I make Hard link?
Answer: A Hard link can be made with ln; first you need to define the source and then you need to define the destination. (Keep it mind you need to define the full path of both source and destination; otherwise it will not work.)
Let's say I have a script in the /script directory named firefox.
ls -i # Shows you the inode
5898242 firefox
ln /scripts/firefox /scripts/on-fire
( Source ) ( Destination )
As you can see, it has the same inode. If I delete the original file, the link will still work, and it will act as the original.
Above, I check that the link is working, and then delete the original firefox script.
Question: It would be nice if someone could provide a setting where a hard link might be preferable over a symbolic link.
Answer: Depending on the disk partition layout, hard links have the limitation that they must be on same partition (-1 point) and can only link to files (-1 point), but if the original is deleted, the link will work and it acts like the original (+1 point).
On the other hand, a soft link can point to directories or files (+1 point) and there is no partition limitation (+1 point), but if the source is deleted, the link will not work (-1 point).
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Best Answer
There is very little difference. To test this I created a new directory with a file "bug3.odt".
I then created two links to it using the command line
ln -s bug3.odt bug_lnandln -s /home/warren/qaz/bug3.odt bug_ln2then finally went into nautilus and created a link by right clicking on the file and selecting "Make Link".The result was as follows
As you can see both
bug_ln2andLink to bug3.odthave the same owner, group, permissions and link to the same location. Right clicking in nautilus is equivalent to using ln -s with the full path to the file.It is also possible to create a link by holding down CTRL+SHIFT and dragging the file. This works in exactly the same way: equivalent to using ln -s with the full path to the file.