Welcome to the real world
So, you have come to linux and wonder how it is different from DOS or Windows…
You probably have noticed quite a few things that are harder in Linux than in the “OS you are used to”. But I would like to point you to some things that are much easier.
I use the commandline. Start using it, too. You will not regret it.
Bash Basics
- TAB is your friend! If you are typing long filenames or commands, hit the TAB-Key and the shell will complete it if possible. If there are more than one possibilities, hitting TAB twice will show them. Type another letter, and TAB again. Nice, isn’t it?
- Combine commands using a ‘pipe’: |
- Redirect output using >
- Use the history by using the arrow-keys to move ‘up’ and ‘down’
File links - By using links, a file can be referenced by more than one name.
Can you tell the difference? - So, it happened again: After weeks of faithfully serving my ears, XMMS decided to annoy me by playing a song from the playlist, but not moving to the next song after that. Last time that happened, I simply deleted the config-files and started XMMS again. This time, I want to find out if I can do something more subtle to cure the condition if it ever arises again.
Killing my software - …or “Fifty ways to leave your process”
Sensitive data in history - OOps, I accidently typed the root-password on the command-line…
Time will tell - No math needed.
chown and chgrp - Only as root or if the user is in the ‘receiving group’
Make a group directory where a number of users can read and write to files
Recursive search and replace - Search and replace a string in many files at once.
Directory-Bookmarks - Typing long path names at the command line can get to be a chore very quickly. Using shell-variables, it you can build a bookmark-list for your bash.
How to delete multiple blank lines: “cat -s” will compress multiple blank lines into a single blank line.
Many small programms that do exactly one task well
Regular Expressions - grep, sed, perl and others
Puzzling commandlines - Puzzling together commandlines can be puzzling sometimes…
..a red guitar, three chords, and the truth... - This tutorial covers listing, filtering and counting of files (ls, grep, wc)
Backup your data - “Important data always has a backup. You can also invert this: If there is no backup for some data,…” (Stonki on suse-linux@suse.de) What follows comes *with no warranties*. If you trash your data, its your fault!
Stamped and categorized - Adding ‘Watermarks’ to many pictures (ImageMagic, and bash’s ‘for…do…done’)
Sometime in Summertime - Mass-renaming photos to include data and time in the filename
OGG to MP3 - Oops, wrong format…
URL-Lists for Google - Creating URL-Lists for Gootle if you are using DokuWiki (like we do). Uses find and sed for shaping the output.
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tutorials/advanced/realworld/start.txt · Last modified: 2008/05/12 01:29 by 71.250.114.33 (anitalewis)
Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
The biggest project we are running is our Linux course, based on the LBook.
The book is stored in wiki-format, which enables us to update and correct it as we go.
Discussion for the course is on our Forum
Our mailing-list is for any Linux-related question.
The questions and answers from the list are stored in the list's archives in order to help others with the same problems.
Every weekend, we meet to chat in IRC. These meetings are NOT mandatory, but are a nice chance to get to know each other better.
IRC is also a great tool to solve many problems, since it is very quick and easy to ask for more details if you need them.
The tutorials are one of the oldest sections on the LBo-website.
Here you find explanations on how to do specific tasks in Linux. Many of the tutorials were created after a certain problem
has been discussed (and usually solved :) on the mailing-list.
The tutorials are categorized in
In the links section, you find outbound links to other valuable resources.
One of our later additions to the site. We maintain a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. This is our contribution to the "home of the HOWTOs"
Another later addition is the LBlog which focuses on how to do stuff on the Linux Desktop. It begins with the basics on installing Ubuntu.
Using the integrated site-search, you can search the tutorials, the LBook and all other wiki-pages
Simply type the search term into the box in the upper-right corner of our webpages
As a community, we depend on your feedback and collaboration. So, if you have something to share with others, please contact us. If you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see covered here, please add it on the Wishlist.
There are many ways to contribute: You can answer questions on the mailing-list, you can write a complete tutorial or just a step-by-step documentation on how you completed a specific task using linux. Ask questions if the information on this site is not clear, tell us if we got something wrong, spell-check our writings, whatever.
We are looking forward to meeting you at LinuxBasics.org
Anita, Jisao, Sam and Stefan