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52 Comments
- Phocion55, on 01/18/2008, -0/+12Shhh, grown ups are talking right now.
- zootm, on 01/18/2008, -4/+13I imagine it's a good guide, but I don't like the assertion that "new Linux users" should have to use the terminal. New users should never have to use the terminal if they don't want to, and the widespread misconception that it is pervasive and necessary for normal operation of a system (which it's not, these days) is harmful to Linux adoption.
- baalzebub, on 01/18/2008, -0/+9http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
- n88n, on 01/18/2008, -0/+7The terminal would not deter me from using Linux it actually makes me want to run Linux. Call me crazy but I all those old DOS commands. I think I might put a Linux version on one of my laptops to see how I likey.
- dracnortw, on 01/18/2008, -0/+6If you give "df" the -h flag it makes it easier to read (prints the sizes in GB instead of bytes).
"df -h" - inactive, on 01/18/2008, -0/+6I like "df" which is a summary of drives and their available space. Quick and easy :)
- bitspace, on 01/18/2008, -0/+6Yet learning the basic functionality of the stuff behind the GUI is beneficial to anybody on any platform. I wouldn't quite call it the equivalent of learning to use the DOS prompt in Windows, because that's not the foundation of Windows, and learning to use DOS commands doesn't necessarily give any insight into modern Windows operation. However, the shell is what hides behind much of the GUI in any unix. A lot of the icons that run GUI applications are just shortcuts to shell scripts and call a series of shell commands under the hood. Knowing at least a little about them is very useful to even the beginner, particularly when there is no one unified GUI for linux. There generally is one common shell, though, and it's all linux underneath.
- mithrasinvictus, on 01/18/2008, -0/+6There are alternatives already. You'll only be forced to use a command line for troubleshooting, just like in windows.
- subgeniusd, on 01/18/2008, -3/+8You could always share some of your vast knowledge base oh grand Bash wizard. Or provide a link like this:http://ss64.com/bash/index.html for those newcomers clicking this submission out of curiosity.
- harlowsmonkeys, on 01/18/2008, -1/+6Checking a random 13 of the people who dugg it, 2 were accounts created in the first few days of this year. The rest were pretty evenly scattered from December 2004 through 2007.
- chingy1788, on 01/18/2008, -7/+11Before Anti and Pro linux stuff creeps in by me and others
I suggest everyone to stick with what you like - StanStutter, on 01/18/2008, -1/+5Thank you oh master of The Google. I bow down to thee! If a newcomer can find Digg, I'm sure they can find Google. Someone new to Linux isn't necessarily new to the Internet. You don't need to spoon feed everything to this audience.
- bitspace, on 01/18/2008, -0/+4The man pages are thorough and generally comprehensive, but obviously not written for somebody not already very comfortable with unix. Most of them are very poorly written from a usability perspective, I must agree.
- jdhore1, on 01/18/2008, -3/+7I already consider myself a "commandline cowboy", but i think this is great to get new Linux users into using some terminal commands a bit. It's a great article and i'd love to see more parts of this going into all kinds of different commands.
- objectcode, on 01/18/2008, -0/+3you might like using a shell in linux more.
- ScottyMcBaggs, on 01/18/2008, -0/+3You're a ***** tool, majorly- GNU had no kernel at the time, Linus wanted to get more intimate knowledge of x86. So here comes GNU/Linux. A FREE alternative to expensive Unix systems. And YES, Unix was designed as an environment that made programming easy. I can't believe how ***** idiotic your last sentence is. That's the whole ***** point of Unix. I've been using Unix since before my balls dropped, and the whole dam environment is tailored towards programmers. Read Unix Philosophy pages, they ALL talk about programming, and really nothing else. Sure Unix runs program, but that doesn't mean that the Unix environment is not designed to make programming easy, elegant, and simple.
This is why I hate Ubuntards, and similar zealots regardless of distribution. They don't know wtf they're talking about, but act like an authority on the topic of Unix and Linux. - JudgeDredd, on 01/18/2008, -2/+5I am guessing that half of the smug Ubuntu users do not even know about the terminal.
/smug Debian person - brufleth, on 01/18/2008, -3/+5"man" is possibly the worst command a new user could ever try to use. I know that linux fanboys will get all pissy about it but man pages are usually written TERRIBLY from the perspective of a new or even experienced user. I have used various flavors of Unix and Linux and if I'm stuck on a command I might try a man page but usually doing a google search or trying various combinations of things I think might work ends up being more effective.
I hate man pages. - elvenseven, on 01/18/2008, -1/+3You sir, need a mirror.
- bitspace, on 01/18/2008, -0/+2That's good material, and I have it handy on all of my machines (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows) but it's certainly not for the linux novice.
- ErikHK, on 01/18/2008, -0/+2type: alias agi='sudo apt-get install'
in the terminal, to check existing aliases just type: alias - ubuwalker31, on 01/18/2008, -0/+2As a recent Asus eee mini-notebook owner with previous linux exposure, I can attest that many new owners are absolutely terrified of the command line, and will only interface with it if the need is outstanding...such as being able to get a work related program working on the computer. Explaining exactly what to type at the shell to the linux newb is imperative. As is being extremely nice and friendly and understanding. Eventually, the newb will pick things up, and can be roughly manhandled once he gets experience.
- AnthoMacP, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1I think that it would probably be a more useful guide for users if it detailed things like installations, changing file permissions, file commands etc. A lot of these you rarely use (save "cd" and "ls") only when diagnosing an issue and probably would be among the last commands a new linux user would ever see a need for on a regular basis
- bitspace, on 01/18/2008, -1/+2Or you could just install cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com/
- Purin, on 01/18/2008, -3/+4Why should I use a GUI if I have a terminal? That's silly, isn't it?
- brufleth, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1I would consider myself pretty comfortable with unix. I've been using it everyday at work for years and back in school I played with Linux on my desktop and used Unix and Linux daily for various classes and projects. Man pages still are usually just a waste of my time.
- brufleth, on 01/18/2008, -2/+3There's actually some nice command lines and shells you can setup in windows which give you a lot of the functionality of a command line (quick batch commands, scripting, linux-like commands, etc). I find them quite useful as I have to process all kinds of data and sometimes it is annoying to move it to my Unix account and then back to windows again for further processing.
- ScottyMcBaggs, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1In Solaris the man pages generally have examples that help out a lot... but the man pages in all unixes are most definitely useful for the 'experienced' user who may remember what a certain functionality is called, and can search for it and find the appropriate argument. Google isn't always there, but the man pages are.
- brufleth, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1Err...yeah, that's what I usually use.
- yatoobin, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1just fsck it!
- andycr512, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1That's like saying "Professionally baked bread requires an oven, I'm not going to bother until it will work in the microwave."
Fine, go enjoy your microwaved dough. - ScottyMcBaggs, on 01/18/2008, -1/+2I think it's alarming that people think it's ok to not know how to use a terminal in Linux. FFS Linux was created as a free alternative to expensive Unix systems! These Unix systems existed for making *programming* easier. That is why Unix exists. Read the history of Unix if you think otherwise. This is one of the reasons I don't like Ubuntu, they obscure this basic principle of Unix philosophy.
- ToadX, on 01/18/2008, -2/+3You don't really know anything about Linux unless you know how to use the terminal. If you only know how to use the GUI that comes with common distributions such as Ubuntu, then you only know how to use the Gnome or KDE interface.
The Gnome and KDE GUI's don't even have to run under Linux; they can be easily run in just about any POSIX compliant OSes such as Solaris. You could easily have a Gnome user interface that looks like Ubuntu's but isn't running on Linux at all.
You can't claim you know anything about Linux if you only use the GUI. Soon enough we'll have all Mac OS X users claiming they know UNIX. - zootm, on 01/19/2008, -0/+1> Yet learning the basic functionality of the stuff behind the GUI is beneficial to anybody on any platform.
Do you really think so? I imagine it's useful to techies, but for people who aren't interested in that sort of thing it'll be an exercise in completely unnecessary frustration.
> I wouldn't quite call it the equivalent of learning to use the DOS prompt in Windows, because that's not the foundation of Windows...
Interestingly I think from the next version onwards, the PowerShell interfaces to things on the Server versions of Windows are meant to be the foundation; the UI elements just script them. It's a neat turnabout for MS.
> Knowing at least a little about them is very useful to even the beginner, particularly when there is no one unified GUI for linux.
I disagree. And I don't think there's any particular disadvantage to tying users to a single UI, unless they actively want to change it, either. People who have Ubuntu should only need to know how to use Gnome, and that's the world they're in. - init100, on 01/19/2008, -0/+1I actually prefer using the same size prefix (usually -k, which means use kB) for all partitions. That makes it easy to spot differences in size quickly, as 10 is very different from 10000, while with -h one becomes 10k and the other becomes 10M.
- daverave999, on 01/18/2008, -0/+1Is this one from 4chan?
- MioTheGreat, on 01/18/2008, -2/+2Why? We've got Powershell, which is pretty damned powerful.
- spyd3rweb, on 01/18/2008, -1/+1How are they going to be able to even read this article?
- Myztry, on 01/19/2008, -1/+1There is nothing hard about using a well written command line interface. Back '88 I spent a lot of my time in the CLI on the Amiga (and others) because written commands were simply the best way to achieve many tasks. The commands were logical and powerful, the switches were intuitive in name and function. The wildcard system was amazing. Redirection (piping) could be done to any device. It was really well implemented. Accessible to all.
Though I'm a full time Ubuntu user, I have to admit the Linux command line is obscure at best. A major obstacle with Linux is that the Linux culture went through a period of obfuscation (hidden meaning) obsession. And it's shows in the non-intuitive nature of the shell commands. Rarely do switches line up with the abbreviated letter of a logically named purpose. Devices are implemented as long obscure named nested file structure references. Sure Linux kicks ass over Windows, but it's hardly the ultimate implementation. And the man (manual) pages are laid out like they were written by a government bureaucrat. Being better doesn't implicitly make something the best.
My 2cents. - dracnortw, on 01/18/2008, -2/+2The "screen" command is very useful in the terminal, especially if you are running commands remotely (say over ssh). But anyone really interested in the command line should make use of aliases - so instead of typing "sudo apt-get install" simply type "agi". Makes life a lot easier.
- MWeather, on 01/18/2008, -1/+1"Pretty basic stuff "
Isn't that what guides for new users generally cover? - inactive, on 01/18/2008, -1/+1You would be guessing wrongly. I've yet to see an Ubuntu newbie tutorial that doesn't hit the terminal near first thing. Slowly, people are learning that while you can do anything you would normally do through a gui, sometimes a terminal really is best.
/smug Ubuntu/Slackware/Fedora/Debian person. Bring it, Dreddy. - MWeather, on 01/18/2008, -1/+1Linux wasn't created as a free alternative to expensive unixes. There already were free alternatives. Ever heard of BSD, or Minix for that matter?
And no OS was designed to make programming easy. OSes are designed for running programs, not writing them. - stotty, on 01/18/2008, -3/+2I whole-heartedly agree with this article, clowns will always be scary!
- usefuljenkins, on 01/18/2008, -1/+0I typed agi at a prompt and received "bash: agi: command not found". Are aliases something that needs to be set up before it works? Cause you make it seem like they're already built into the OS.
- kingo123, on 01/18/2008, -3/+2What a load of "chmod"!
Seriously where is it? - truspect0r, on 01/18/2008, -4/+2You praising linux in every linux thread, sure smells like something is cooking behind the scenes.
- inactive, on 01/18/2008, -3/+1Why not dual boot and have the best of both worlds? Works fine for me....
- troydoogle7, on 01/18/2008, -12/+4windows is all gui, I won't switch to linux till it is the same. They don't have to replace the command line just give people alternatives. If in doubt see windows95.
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