Finding Files with locate
Many Linux users use the ‘find’ utility when searching for files using the command line on their system. They’ll do a simple: find / -name ‘pattern’ Really though, the power of find isn’t just in finding names of files but rather specific details about those files. For example, if you wanted to find files which are writable by both their owner and their group: find / -perm -444 -perm /222 ! -perm /111 or perhaps find any file that’s been altered in your Download directory in the past 24 hours: find /home/user/Downloads/ -mtime 0 As you can see, the find command is very versatile and can be used to find an array of different attributes of files. There are times though where I’m just looking for something and I don’t want to have to wait for the command to scan the entire directory tree in order to track it down. That’s where locate comes in with quick and simple results


