How to create a soft or symbolic link?

I am installing p4v in /opt, but /usr/bin is on my path. Is it possible to create a soft or symbolic link for p4v from /opt to /usr/bin, so I can just type "p4v" since /usr/bin is in my path?

2

8 Answers

See man ln.

To create a symlink at /usr/bin/bar which references the original file /opt/foo, use:

ln -s /opt/foo /usr/bin/bar

You would need to apply the above command as root (i.e. with sudo).

12

The error is that you are writing the command wrong. The correct way is

ln -s /<full>/<path>/<to>/<file> /usr/local/bin

2

If the 'p4v' executable is at /opt/bin/p4v, you can simply run:

sudo ln -s /opt/bin/p4v /usr/bin/p4v
sudo chmod ugo+x /usr/bin/p4v

It would be better to add /opt/bin (or wherever the executable is) to your path:

echo "export PATH=\$PATH:/opt/bin" >> ~/.profile
reset

2

Check the software location by this.

which application-name #replace for the application you are looking for

for example

which skype

output will be this.

/usr/bin/skype 

To create the soft link. for example you want to create the soft link for skype on your desktop

ln -s /usr/bin/skype ~/Desktop/

For more information about ln.

man ln

or

ln --help

ln -s -n ./TargetDirectory ./Nickname

---

Note, this works if you both nodes are below you in the same tree. You can use relative notation

• -s command makes it a symbolic link
• -n makes it possible de create a folder-type symlink

1

This template was more helpful for me than the above answers. Probably not more correct, just less obfuscated:

ln -s <path/to/real/file-or-folder> <symlink path>

Just replace the parts in <>'s

0

If it is saying target is not a folder, it means there are spaces in your folder names eg: New Folder has a space

You need to edit the path and add a backslash \ after every space in the paths

eg:

ln -s /opt/bin /usr/var/New\ Folder

1

I have found that it is easier to go to where you want the link to be and then create the link using sudo ln -s /path/to/source/file, than doing ln -s target source.

So in your case I would do cd /usr/bin then sudo ln -s /opt/bin/pv4. The other way has not been working in my case.