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Episode 137 - Terminal Commands


Justin_Case001

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This one might be a little insider baseball.

Y'know what really grinds my gears?  Terminal commands on  Linux.  Anyone who uses any Linux based OS knows that if you want to do anything more than just the basic layperson stuff that comes bundled with the OS (like word processing, web browsing, listening to music, etc), then at some point you're going to come face to face with the terminal (aka the console or command line) for some advanced operation.  I don't mind this, but what annoys the piss outta me is simply the fact that there's no standard manual or reference for the damn console commands!  How is anyone supposed to know what they are??!  MAGIC??!!  The only way that I have ever figured out how to learn a command is to google it and find some friendly, helpful user on Ask Ubuntu, or OMG! Ubuntu, or It's FOSS that shares their divine computing wisdom.  And there's no shortage of those people--any command you want to know, there's somebody who's posted it.  But why should that be the only way?  And how did those people learn 'em, huh??!  MAGIC??!!  Why don't the distros have a website with a comprehensive manual of console commands so that one can actually learn rather than just randomly googling until you find someone else who's posted the answer??  Drives me nuts.  :baconmane:

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A quick google search found "linuxcommand org", it seems to have some info.

Operating systems used to come with big manuals - I have MS-DOS 5 with a thick manual and installation media (5.25" floppies). I also have a book mainly about MS-DOS. I guess at some point they just dropped the manuals. However, you may still be able to get a book. There used to be "Linux for Dummies", but that's old, there probably are newer versions.

The way I learned was to google what I want to do, then figure out what else the command can do. Yeah, I may do some things less efficiently than it would be possible, but as long as it works it's ok. I don't think I would be able to learn just by reading the manual, as my memory does not work like this. I just read and forget. I remember only if I use the knowledge, so, if I have to do something a few times, I may have to google it at first, but later I'll be able to do it from memory.

However, a lot of Linux commands do one thing and what you want to do usually involves stringing them together. You do not have to learn some complicated command, you can build it from simpler ones. Or, if its more complicated, just write a script.

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