LinuxCommand.org: Tips, News And Rants

Announcing The Linux Command Line from No Starch Press

2012-01-11T12:30:00.000-05:00

Starting today, the printed version of The Linux Command Line will be published by No Starch Press. It is available now wherever fine books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In October of 2010 I received an email from an editor at No Starch saying that they were impressed with my book and asked if I would be interested in commercially publishing it. This started a long

Evolution of shells in Linux

2011-12-07T16:31:00.000-05:00

A brief article on the IBM developerWorks site about the history of Unix shell programs and their Linux implementations:Evolution of shells in Linux:'via Blog this'

The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix - IEEE Spectrum

2011-12-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

For those of you interested in where the basic concepts and design (but not code!) in Linux comes from, here is a great article in IEEE Spectrum on the development and history of Unix.The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix - IEEE Spectrum:'via Blog this'

Stop SOPA

2011-11-16T14:36:00.001-05:00

I just emailed Congress to urge them to oppose the Internet Blacklist Legislation, known as the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This legislation seeks to give the executive branch power to conduct slash-and-burn campaigns against websites that allegedly host – or even link to – content that infringes on intellectual property rights. That would “

Two decades of productivity: Vim's 20th anniversary

2011-11-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

Two decades of productivity: Vim's 20th anniversary: The Vim text editor was first released to the public on November 2, 1991—exactly 20 years ago today. Although it was originally designed as a vi clone for the Amiga, it was soon ported to other platforms and eventually grew to become the most popular vi-compatible text editor. It is still actively developed and widely used across several

Installing Linux on a 386 Laptop

2011-08-13T12:44:00.000-04:00

I saw an interesting article today. A DIY project installing Linux (albeit old Linux) on a really old 386SX laptop. It can't do very much, but it's one of those projects you tackle "because it's there." You can check out the story here.

Ask Ars: how do I use the find command in a pipeline?

2011-08-01T00:15:00.000-04:00

Ask Ars: how do I use the find command in a pipeline?: In 1998, Ask Ars was an early feature of the newly launched Ars Technica. Now, as then, it's all about your questions and our community's answers. Each week, we'll dig into our question bag, provide our own take, then tap the wisdom of our readers. To submit your own question, see our helpful tips page. Q: I know I can use the find

Google Chromebooks: Some Helpful Tips

2011-07-27T15:23:00.001-04:00

When I was considering the purchase of a Chromebook, I was looking for a device that could fulfill several different usage cases. I had in mind the ability to take the device on vacation and perform the ordinary tasks I usually perform when I’m not at my desk. These include: Document production, primarily blog post composition and editing. Photo management. As I take a lot of pictures when I

Google Chromebook: The Computer You Can't Screw Up

2011-07-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

I’ve had my Samsung Chromebook for a couple of weeks now. A lot has been written about the Chromebook concept, so I won’t go into it in detail here, but in a nutshell, a Chromebook is a specialized small form-factor computing device that is designed to act as an Internet terminal which can rapidly connect the user to network-based services. It provides a software platform for web-based “apps”

New Discount Offer For The Linux Command Line

2010-06-10T05:51:00.000-04:00

I recently got a notice from Lulu stating that, for a limited time, you may receive a 10% discount when you order a printed copy of The Linux Command Line. Details from the notice are as follows: Disclaimer: Use coupon code SUMMERREAD305 at checkout and receive 10% off The Linux Command Line. Maximum savings with this promotion is $10. You can only use the code once per account, and you can't

My Top 5 Bash Resources

2010-06-03T13:03:00.002-04:00

Over the course of writing The Linux Command Line and this blog, I've had frequent need of good reference resources for command line programs including the shell itself, bash. Here is my list of the ones that stand out: 1. The Bash Man Page Yeah, I know. I spent nearly half a page in my book trashing the bash man page for its impenetrable style and its lack of any trace of user-friendliness,

Using Configuration Files With Shell Scripts

2010-06-01T16:08:00.005-04:00

If you have worked with the command line for a while, you have no doubt noticed that many programs use text configuration files of one sort or another. In this lesson, we will look at how we can control shell scripts with external configuration files. Why Use Configuration Files? Since shell scripts are just ordinary text files, why should we bother with additional text configuration files?

Will The iPad Kill The Netbook?

2010-05-27T15:19:00.002-04:00

Ever since Apple announced the iPad, there have been countless stories in the press about the iPad's effect on the netbook market. I'm a big fan of netbooks and I agree that the netbook market is in trouble but it's not because of the iPad. It's because of Windows. Now, I don't mean this as a piece of simple-minded anti-MS snark (though I am fully capable ;-). I'm serious. Windows is the

Site News: 20,000 Downloads And New Series Navigation

2010-05-24T18:53:00.004-04:00

A few updates on the state of the site: The book reached the 20,000 download mark over the weekend. Thanks everybody! This represents the number of downloads performed from the Sourceforge site, but there are probably more since the book is mirrored at a variety of other sites throughout the world. If you have been thinking about purchasing a printed copy of The Linux Command Line, now may be

Project: Getting Ready For Ubuntu 10.04 - Part 5

2010-05-18T15:47:00.003-04:00

For our final installment, we're going to install and perform some basic configuration on our new Ubuntu 10.04 system. Downloading The Install Image And Burning A Disk We covered the process of getting the CD image and creating the install media in installment 3. The process is similar. You can download the CD image here. Remember to verify the MD5SUM of the disk you burn. We don't want to

Project: Getting Ready For Ubuntu 10.04 - Part 4a

2010-05-15T10:54:00.003-04:00

After some experiments and benchmarking, I have modified the usb_backup_ntfs script presented in the last installment to remove compression. This cuts the time needed to perform the backup using this script by roughly half. The previous script works, but this one is better: #!/bin/bash # usb_backup_ntfs # backup system to external disk drive SOURCE="/etc /usr/local /home" NTFS_DESTINATION=/

Project: Getting Ready For Ubuntu 10.04 - Part 4

2010-05-11T18:33:00.003-04:00

Despite my trepidations, I'm going to proceed with the upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04. I've already upgraded my laptop and with Sunday's release of an improved totem movie player, the one "show stopper" bug has been addressed. I can live with/work around the rest. The laptop does not contain much permanent data (I use it to write and collect images from my cameras when I travel) so wiping the hard

The Bugs In Ubuntu 10.04

2010-04-30T15:07:00.003-04:00

Now that Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx") has been released, I can spend some time talking about my experience testing it. I was really hoping that 10.04, being a LTS (Long Term Support) release, would have focused on supreme reliability and stability. A sort of "9.10 without the bugs." Unfortunately this was not the case. 10.04 introduces a host of new features and technologies, some of which

Ubuntu 10.04 Has Been Released.

2010-04-29T12:57:00.000-04:00

I'm downloading the CD as I write. You can get it here.

The Financial Physics of Free Software

2010-04-27T19:38:00.002-04:00

In the Internet age, does software have value? Of course software is valuable in the sense that it provides service and is useful, but does software have monetary value? If one looks at the law of supply and demand, the fact that software, like all other forms of digital content, can be endlessly reproduced and distributed at virtually no cost negates its value because software distributed this

New Features In Bash Version 4.x - Part 4

2010-04-22T16:00:00.004-04:00

In this final installment of our series, we will look at perhaps the most significant area of change in bash version 4.x: arrays. Arrays In bash Arrays were introduced in version 2 of bash about fifteen years ago. Since then, they have been on the fringes of shell programming. I, in fact, have never seen a shell script "in the wild" that used them. None of the scripts on LinuxCommand.org,

Ubuntu 10.04 RC Has Been Released

2010-04-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

For those of you following along with my Getting Ready For Ubuntu 10.04 series, the Release Candidate has just come out. LWN has the release announcement.

Hitler, as Downfall producer, orders a DMCA takedown

2010-04-21T16:26:00.005-04:00

As you may have heard, the producers of the movie "Downfall" recently staged a DMCA takedown of all of the bunker scene parodies on YouTube, including the one I posted on this blog. Brad Templeton, well-known activist, has posted a response. You can view it here. Further Reading http://ideas.4brad.com/hitler-tries-dmca-takedown http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/globe-on-technology

stat

2010-04-15T16:39:00.002-04:00

I was going to write the next installment in my New Features In Bash Version 4.x series today, but in thinking about the examples I want to use, I thought I should talk about the stat command first. We're all familiar with ls. It's the first command that most people learn. Using ls you can get a lot of information about a file: bshotts@twin7:~$ ls -l .bashrc -rw-r--r-- 1 bshotts bshotts 3800

New Features In Bash Version 4.x - Part 3

2010-04-13T17:12:00.003-04:00

In this installment, we are going to look at a couple of commands that have been updated in bash 4.x read Enhancements The read command has gotten several small improvements. There is one however that I thought was a real standout. You can now provide a default value that will be accepted if the user presses the Enter key. The new -i option is followed by a string containing the default text