Top command line tips from Linux experts
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Speaking of fun, nothing beats sitting around the bar and talking about the industry to top off a quiet week, and last week Linux Voice hosted one of those talks, with the topic being command line tips. It aims to render most web pages "There are a lot of really good reasons to use the command line," write the Linux Voice curators, "it's a powerful and concise way to interact with your computer." "However, I wanted to take a moment to look at some of its more obscure (some would say pointless and not worth doing) uses," they add. First up on the magazine's list is the elinks web browser: "It may not look as flashy as its competitors, but it aims to render most web pages," they explain. "It's also geeky chic, which comes in handy when you need to quickly check if you can access a web page from a computer you can only access via SSH." The talk then includes some helpful tips like looking up some definitions on Wikipedia. Important for maintenance "Command-line tricks are fun. Really fun," enthuses Google+ blogger Alexandru Ebersol, for example. "But they forget cowsay, which is used to make you laugh in a dark terminal." "The command line is important for maintenance," he adds. "People can use bash scripts to automate complex tasks with just a few keystrokes (or just one)." Other command-line tricks that Ebersol would have included in his original list include sl (steam locomotive) and these oddballs: * % cat "food in cans" cat: can't open food in cans * % nice man woman No manual entry for woman. * % [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? Missing ]. * % make love Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop. * % man: why did you get a divorce? man:: Too many arguments. "Command line secrets? There are none," says blogger Robert Bergson. "Disappointed, newbie? Just bang on 'help'. Want a hint? 'man' something. Want more and something different? Type 'ls /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin | less', pick up a few gems, and 'man' them all night. I've been doing it for over a decade and still have a blast." Bergson can't remember how long ago he discovered 'ssh', but "it's one of the brightest gems in the world of free/open source software," he says. "The power of ssh is that you can have fun typing commands on one computer, and you can have 100 times more fun doing the same thing on 100 computers," he added. "Of course, typing commands 100 times is no joke. So learning to log in securely without passwords over ssh makes remote logins transparent." Use it with respect Of course, "like anything fun, there are people who get addicted to doing damage," Bergson warned. "As root, you can type commands to delete everything or mess it up. It's the nuclear button, and like global leaders handling world affairs, think twice before pressing that key, evaluate the consequences of doing it, and use it with respect and noble intentions," he added. "I once deleted a file system because my thumb accidentally hit the space bar while typing a command," Bergson concluded. "Honestly, I've only done that stupid thing once." Powerful Google+ blogger Gonzalo: Velasco C is less enthusiastic. “Even if GUI tools are easier to use, the command line is still very powerful in the *nix world,” he told us. “Even some advanced MacOS users use them.” For Gonzalo Velasco C himself, “The only commands I want to master are process control and kill commands, ctrl+alt+backspace so I can use it to deal with a process that’s giving me trouble, and tar.gz file management — that thing still gives me a headache,” he said. You’re Doing It Wrong Last, but not least, SoylentNews blogger hairyfeet has a completely different perspective. "I just want to say one thing to round out this story on the command line interface: if you're not in IT and you're doing repetitive tasks that are just very simple, primitive ways to record useful things, and you're still using the command line, then 'you're on a dead end,'" hairyfeet said. "There's nothing magical about the command line interface - it's just a graphical interface from the 1970s!" Today, there are "a lot of useful graphical interfaces, thanks to faster CPUs and more memory than cheap watches from the dollar store - we even have IDEs and scripting languages that are much better than those from the 70s, can work over WANs or LANs, and interact with the lowest level of the operating system, and everything is getting easier to use thanks to technologies like IntelliSense and autocomplete," he explained. "So by God, if you're not one of the 3% of sysadmins who work in a world where bytes are counted, are you going to dig that shit out of the old books?" This is Hairyfeet's best command line advice? "Don't be swayed by the unrealistic ideas of the 21st century, learn how to actually use the language and tools," he concluded. "Let the command line become a bubble, and throw the floppy disk into the dustbin of history." As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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