Linux

cd, find, pushd, popd and last but not least nnn.

On my personal computer, zoxide, fzf, fzf tab completion allow me to jump around anywhere quite easily, I still use exa/cd for the most part. Look into this if you need more visualization. I still use a GUI file browser from time to time.

Oh my server though, I still use the default shell, so yes I just memorize where things are. But a trick is to allow for a large history file, and I use the command history search (Ctrl-R) because I tend to run the same things constantly. My setup helps too, I run things in docker, and have a data and a config directory, things go into each accordingly, and I bind mount those directories instead of using volumes.

If you edit config files a lot, in vim or nvim, :bro old will give you a list of files you recently edited and you can jump to them by inputting a number.

That's a good question 💯 In my case too, it took me some time (read years 😂) to figure out what I'm comfortable w/.

I can think of 3 major ways that you can navigate the filesystem while being able to drop to a shell when you need it:

• If you're familiar w/ Emacs, you can either:
  • Use dired and tramp on your machine to access/navigate the target machine.
  • Install Emacs (emacs-nox) on the target machine, SSH and then run emacs-nox and voila! No need for tramp in this scenario.
• Use Midnight Commander (mc) which offers a TUI pretty much like Norton Commander (nc) from the days of yore.
• Get used to the semi-standard structure of the file system and just use plain Bash (cd, pushd & popd) to move around. That is
  • Understand what usually goes into common directories (like /usr/share or /opt) and try to follow the same pattern when rolling your own software installations.
  • Learn how to use your distro's package manager to query packages and find out where things, like configurations and docs, are stored. Something as simple as rpm -q --list is what you usually need.

HTH

https://github.com/agkozak/zsh-z

Any directory in the filesystem is less than 5 key presses away

Depends on your workflow and file structure, but nvim with nvchad works great for coding. I also sometimes use ranger to better see file structures.

I felt the same. Simple tasks I do in terminal, but when I have to deal with too many files and folders I use filebrowser. Its amazing docker container with simple GUI

I find that zsh with plugins makes my life very easy. And if I need to quickly find something, fzf works wonders