N900 filesystem

This article is here to help you find your files you see in file manager but can't seem to find via terminal.

Note: power users should know how to use find, so lets keep this article beginner-friendly!

[edit] Location table

N900 mount points
File manager path Real path Size of the partition Partition Type Device
root / 256 MiB rootfs Built in to processor chip
space for software installations etc. /home 2 GiB ext3 Partition of 32 GB memory chip
Nokia N900 /home/user/MyDocs 27 GiB vfat (default) Partition of 32 GB memory chip
Memory card /media/mmc1 Memory card's size N/A microSD memory card
Swap - 768 MiB swap Partition of 32 GB memory chip

Please notice, that units are Gibibytes (GiB), not Gigabytes (GB). N900 specs say 32 GB, not 32 GiB

eMMC is a image of 32 GB chip. See Updating the firmware

Note: MyDocs has subfolders that can be seen with file manager, there is an article describing those called MyDocs folder. The folder you see when you plug in your N900 to computer is:

/home/user/MyDocs

[edit] Instructions for viewing hidden files

All files that start with period (.), are hidden files/folders. For example:

/home/user/.thisishiddenfile.txt
/home/user/MyDocs/.images/
Mac
Use ls -a in terminal or a Dashboard Widget
Windows
To see hidden or system files, open the "Tools" menu, and select "Folder Options", then in the "View" tab, check "Show hidden files and folders". Learn more
GNOME - Nautilus
In the View menu of the file manager, check the "Hidden files" checkbox. Learn more. The keyboard shortcut is Control+H.
KDE - Dolphin
In the View menu of the file manager, select "Show Hidden Files" Learn more
Command line
Use ls -a in a terminal. This will work on your Nokia N770, N8xx, and N900 as well as any Linux distro or system.

[edit] Further reading