in defense of the command line

[Janina Sajka]

Octavian:

You might want to add the following three commands to the end of
your /etc/bashrc. You need to be root to do this:

PS1="[\u@\h \t] \W\\\$"
alias ls="ls -px"
alias rm="rm -i"

The first command will alter your shell prompt to show your login
name, your host name, the current time of day as of when the
prompt is printed, and your pwd. That way you don't have to be
always typing pwd to see where you are, it'll just be part of
your prompt.

If you don't want the time as part of this shell prompt, take out
the \t part.

The second command will make ls a little friendlier. Any filename
that's a directory will end in a slash, as in mydir/, and
symbolic links will end with the @ symbol.

The third command will help you not delete something you didn't
mean to delete. Anytime you give out an rm, it will ask if you
really mean it.

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Octavian Rasnita wrote:

> Hi, thanks. Nice explanation.
> I am not intimidate  by the command lines. I am frightened by the idea of
> breaking something.
> Maybe I type rm fILE instead of rm File and I could delete another file. And
> I don't know the undelete command.
> The most used command by me is pwd, to be sure that I am in the right
> directory, and ls, to see the files from there.
> The other problem I have is that I don't remember very easy the parameters.
> I usually remember  the command name but I can't remember if I should use
> the -L parameter or the -l parameter.
> I've seen that for some commands, the same parameter make the same thing,
> but for other commands that parameter make another thing.
> If I remember well, it is the case of -R parameter, but I don't remember
> exactly in what commands makes what.
> In some commands, it means Recursive in the directory tree, but  in other
> commands, it means another thing.
> 
> Another problem, and maybe here I can make something to  improve, is that
> after I give a command like sync, it doesn't tell me if the command was
> successfully or not, and I don't know what to do.
> I typed that command from another account than root, and it didn't tell me
> anything. It didn't tell me if the command  was successfully or not or if I
> have the right to type that command from another account than root.
> 
> 
> 
> Teddy,
> orasnita at home.ro
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Charles Hallenbeck" <hallenbeck at valstar.net>
> To: "Speakup Distribution List" <speakup at speech.braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 1:50 PM
> Subject: in defense of the command line
> 
> 
> Octavius and others seem to be intimidated by the command line.
> Here is what helps me:
> 
> Think of a Linux command as a "sentence". The name of the command
> is the verb of the sentence, it tells what to do. Sometimes that
> is all there is to a command line. But usually you have to name
> some objects of the action, what thing or things should be acted
> on. Often those objects are the names of files. A sentence has a
> verb and it has objects, so the sentence thing still works.
> 
> Example:
> 
> wc myfile.txt
> 
> The verb is "wc" and the thing the verb acts on is "myfile.txt".
> 
> The next step is to modify or qualify the action of the verb.
> This is usually done on the command line between the verb and its
> object or objects. These modifiers or qualifiers are called
> "options" and start with a dash (-) character. Those are the
> adverbs or adjectives of the sentence.
> 
> Example:
> 
> ls -t
> 
> The verb is "ls" and the adverb is "-t", which lists the files in
> the order they were last modified or changed (t for time, not
> hard to remember).
> 
> So, if the command line frightens you, think of it as a language,
> made up of sentences, and sentences made up of a verb (just one
> verb), maybe one or more adverbs or adjectives, and maybe one or
> more objects for the verb to act on.
> 
> 
> Now - everybody learn to talk Linux!
> 
> Chuck
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Visit me at http://www.valstar.net/~hallenbeck
> The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (57% of Full)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org