Nice Linux basic command guide

[littleman]

I came across this link:
[frankenlinux.com...]
It goes over the basic Linux commands in a very straight forward and plain English kind of way. It is compact enough that it could be printed out and used as a type of 'cheatsheet' if you wanted.

There are a lot of other good tips and howtos (Vi, DHCP, fstab, and others) on that site, it is probably worth a bookmark if you are still at the novice stage like myself.

[Nick_W]

Nice find! I've been using Linux for about a year and a half and still will find this most useful ;)

Cheers!

Nick

[littleman]

>a year and a half
I an going on three years now, but I still consider myself a novice. ;)

[Nick_W]

hehe, yeah fair enough. I can do most stuff but shell scipting and complicated greping and the like are way beyond me ;)

Nick

[martin]

Thanks for this Littleman. I'm using Linux for more than a year but I didn't know about script.

A nice addition is that you can go back to X if you switch away from it with Alt-F7 (by default).

[bird]

I an going on three years now, but I still consider myself a novice.

Are you guys on a conspiracy to make me feel old? ;)

[Mohamed_E]

> Are you guys on a conspiracy to make me feel old?

Bird,

I have been using one flavor of UNIX or another since 1978. That is not a typo, it is almost a quarter of a century. Do you now feel younger? :)

Interestingly enough I have never used Linux. At work my philosophy was to use Solaris on Sun hardware and use Windows on Intel hardware. I am now retired and moderately unhappy with my WIN2K setup, so I will soon be asking for more Linux specific help.

[David]

Thanks Littleman,

Good Refference .. the tail command is going to come in handy for me

[dingman]

I have been using one flavor of UNIX or another since 1978. That is not a typo, it is almost a quarter of a century. Do you now feel younger? happy!

Can't speak for Bird, but I sure do. You've been using Unix longer than I've been alive.

Back on topic, I second the reccomendation on that page that you buy Linux in a Nutshell if you want to learn more basic commands. I'm also astonished that I didn't see mention of 'man', 'apropos', or 'info' on that first page. Type 'man man' at your prompt for more info.

When in X (the graphical system you are most likely using) Ctrl-Alt-F# will switch you out of the 'virtual terminal' on which X is running to virtual terminal #. Most distributions ship with 1-6 active, with X on the 7th. When you aren't in X, you can use Alt-left and Alt-right to switch between terminals, or Alt-F# to switch to terminal #. This is often more useful to know than ctrl-alt-backspace, since it doesn't make you log out of your graphical session.

[bird]

Mohamed_E has been using unix for about two years longer than I have, so that doesn't do much. But being retired certainly adds some more perspective... ;)

I agree with dingman that the built-in documentation of any decent unix system is one of the stronger points in their favour. Every little command tends to be exhaustively documented in a standard format (despite the GNU folks "generally abhorring man pages"). If you ever have a problem with something, "man something" will tell you the solution. And if you don't know the name of a command, try searching for a related keyword with "apropos".

Side rant: Did anyone of you ever try to solve a Windows problem using only the documentation coming with the system? End of rant.

[martin]

>Side rant: Did anyone of you ever try to solve a Windows problem using only the documentation coming with the system? End of rant.

OT: Nope, I usually delete all of it after I install Windows.

Windows was not made to be customizable/flexible so it doesn't need any docs, just run it and if you like it keep it otherwise throw it away.