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I have two hard-disks each with Ubuntu, when I access the second hard-disk while being in the first one, the directory has long serial-like name, which does not allow for a quick cd alias.

Which command will allow me to get this name so that I can store a link to it, and put in a variable so that I can use it within my alias? when I open that directory in terminal It looks like:

my_user@my_user:/media/my_user/3d3f80f2-83ee-41f9-9d6e-7145b5fdb7dd1/home/$

but, since this name

3d3f80f2-83ee-41f9-9d6e-7145b5fdb7dd1

changes each time I restart or mount again to that disk, I want instead to be able to do something like:

alias = 'cd /media/my_user/${this_random_long_name}'

I tried to search on how this name is being generated, and how to refer to it formally, but I could not find an answer.

ardu ros
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    Default mount is by UUID which should not change. But if you give partition a label it will mount using that label. You can use gparted, disks, or command line to assign labels to partitions. There are now two labels with gpt partitioned drives. this will show labels: lsblk -e 7 -o name,fstype,size,fsused,label,UUID,mountpoint See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MaintenanceFreeCustomGrub2Screen#Labeling_the_partitions or: https://askubuntu.com/questions/276911/how-to-rename-partitions – oldfred Jan 11 '24 at 14:52
  • Please edit your question adding the commands you use to mount the drive. I use, for example, sudo mount -t ext4 UUID=0ac356c1-caa9-4c2e-8229-4408bd998dbd /media/nvme and do not understand why your UUID seems to be changing. – Doug Smythies Jan 11 '24 at 14:52
  • you can make a lable for you filesystem. sudo lsblk -f please [edit] your question for output. – nobody Jan 11 '24 at 14:53
  • Yes, @DougSmythies but the UUID is already being incremented by 1 each time I reboot, I just need a way to define that once and forever – ardu ros Jan 11 '24 at 15:46
  • You seem to have an extra digit on yours which I do not understand. You have 37 digits, but it should be 36. You need to edit your question adding the information we have been asking for. In the absence of more information, try 3d3f80f2-83ee-41f9-9d6e-7145b5fdb7dd. – Doug Smythies Jan 11 '24 at 16:49

1 Answers1

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Simple solution

This seems to be an XY problem. Since you only have 2 disks like that, you can get the name of the drive without even knowing it.

See, you are in the first hard drive, so it's mounted at /. Your other hard drive is mounted at /media/my_user/something. Therefore, there is only one directory under /media/my_user. You can use the wildcard * to expand to it:

cd /media/my_user/* # Enter that drive
cd /media/my_user/*/home # Enter a subfolder

To get the "quick cd alias" you wanted:

# Put the following in .bashrc:
alias cdthatdrive='cd /media/my_user/*'
# Then after relogging and opening a new terminal:
cdthatdrive # to use that alias

If you still need the random name:

RANDOM_NAME="$(basename /media/my_user/*)"
alias cdthatdrive="cd /media/my_user/$RANDOM_NAME"

Advanced solution

The simple solution above is preferred if it's sufficient for your use case. Only once you encounter the need for supporting 3 or more drives, you can use a more comprehensive solution:

udisksctl interacts with the daemon that mounts disks on modern Linux. The GUI more or less calls something like udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdb except using DBus. So run udisksctl dump and press / to search for the current random ID the drive is currently mounted at and look for something like /dev/disk/by-id/something-part1 in the "Symlinks:" section above. Then use some DBus stuff to go the other way around:

RANDOM_PATH="/dev/disk/by-id/something-part1" # If your ID is really changing, you can try using wildcard here together with the part (vendor, etc.) that doesn't change
RANDOM_PATH="$(readlink -f "$RANDOM_PATH")"
RANDOM_PATH="$(basename "$RANDOM_PATH")"
RANDOM_PATH="$(dbus-send --system --print-reply=literal --dest=org.freedesktop.UDisks2 /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/"$RANDOM_PATH" org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get string:org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Filesystem string:MountPoints)"
RANDOM_PATH="${RANDOM_PATH#*\"}"
RANDOM_PATH="${RANDOM_PATH%\"*}"
# Then you can cd:
cd "$RANDOM_PATH"
Daniel T
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