I want to try and make a very basic file manager for my linux system. Can you show me how to make a window and list directory contents in it? Write this in the bash programming langauge
Of course! Here's how you can use bash to handle the basic functionality and Tcl/Tk to display the result in a window. 

#!/bin/bash
# fileManager.sh

# redirect file list to a temporary file
ls > /tmp/fileList

...

#!/usr/bin/env wish
# fileManager.tcl

# read the temporary file from the bash script
set file_list [exec cat /tmp/fileList]

# display the result in a window
wm title . "File Manager"
text .fileList -width 80 -height 20
pack .fileList
.fileList insert end $file_list

...

#!/bin/bash
#startFileManager.sh

# run fileManager.sh script in the background
./fileManager.sh &

# wait for the temporary file to be written 
while [ ! -f /tmp/fileList ]; do sleep 0.1; done

# run fileManager.tcl 
./fileManager.tcl

As you can see, this program uses three files: fileManager.sh to run file operations, fileManager.tcl to handle the GUI, and a control script, startFileManager.sh, to coordinate execution. Note that you may need to install Tcl/Tk, which is freely available in the repositories of most Linux distributions. 

Let me know if you need further assistance. 