Trying to do something in terminal.

Question

Trying to do something in terminal.

Okay so I've tried this like a million times. I have no clue what I am doing here. I am trying to save some keyboard sounds from the computer to a hard drive. I have followed the steps from another question on here and I get to step 4 which is do something in terminal. Here is what it tells me to do.

"Create symbolic links to your moved folders. For this you will need to go into the Terminal, cd to the folder where you have made your copies of the GarageBand and Logic folders and type the following:

4. Create symbolic links to your moved folders. For this you will need to go into the Terminal, cd to the folder where you have made your copies of the GarageBand and Logic folders and type the following:

ln -s "/Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/Instrument Library/" "Instrument Library"

ln -s "/Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/EXS Factory Samples/" "EXS Factory Samples"

Substitue in the correct names and paths where I've put <NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>

This will create two symbolic links - one called 'Instrument Library' and one called 'EXS Factory Samples'. Your Mac will see these symbolic links as if they were the original folders themselves."

Can someone show me what this is supposed to look like in terminal? I type "cd" nothing happens. I know I'm not doing something right. I understand that I'm supposed to write the name of the disk and the file path. But its not very clear on what happens next. Do you save it? Do I export?

MacBook Air, iOS 9.2.1

Posted on May 4, 2016 10:10 PM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

53,117 points

May 5, 2016 6:09 AM in response to Rhinestonespaceman

Open a Terminal session.

Enter

cd <space>

(press the space bar where I indicate <space>)

Using the Finder, go to the folder where you wish store the "Instrument Library" and "EXS Factory Samples" symbolic links.

Drag the tiny folder icon in the Finder window's title bar to the Terminal window

In this example, I used the Music folder, but you choose the folder where you want to store "Instrument Library" and "EXS Factory Samples" symbolic links. Just Click and Drag that little folder, as I have indicated above to the Terminal window. This will append the correct path after the 'cd' command you entered a moment ago.

Back to the Terminal. Press the <return> key to execute the properly formed 'cd' command. The Terminal session's current working directory will not be that folder.

In the Terminal windows enter

ln -s <space>

Using the Finder navigate to where ever /Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/Instrument Library/ is really located.

Again, drag and drop the tiny folder icon from the Finder folder's title bar to the Terminal window

Back in the Terminal window, press the <return> key and the symbolic link should be created.

In the Terminal windows enter

ln -s <space>

Using the Finder navigate to where ever /Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/EXS Factory Samples/ is really located.

Again, drag and drop the tiny folder icon from the Finder folder's title bar to the Terminal window

Back in the Terminal window, press the <return> key and the symbolic link should be created.

You should be done.

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Answer 2

May 5, 2016 10:51 AM in response to BobHarris

ok so now my only question is this. when you say "Using the Finder navigate to where ever /Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/Instrument Library/ is really located." Am I looking for the original or the copied file?

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

53,117 points

May 5, 2016 12:06 PM in response to Rhinestonespaceman

Rhinestonespaceman wrote:

ok so now my only question is this. when you say "Using the Finder navigate to where ever /Volumes/<NAME OF SECOND DISK>/<FILE PATH TO YOUR COPIED FOLDERS>/Instrument Library/ is really located." Am I looking for the original or the copied file?

A symbolic link is a file system pointer to another location.

The 'cd' command should have placed you in the folder where you want the pointer to live.

My use of "Using the Finder navigate to where..." means you should use the Finder to open a Finder window of the directory you want the symlink to point to. The desired pointer destination.

I have suggested using this approach, as it means you do not need to type a complicated path into the Terminal, as the drag and drop I have suggested will automatically put a correct path into the Terminal.

Feel free to give it a try. If you want to just experiment, create an empty folder, and use the 'cd' command and my drag & drop to set that as the location for the symbolic links. Then drag and drop any other folder to the ln -s command and see what you get. Double click on the resulting symbolic links and see if they do what you want. Repeat the experiment as often as you like until you feel comfortable. Then do exactly what you really want.

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