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Learn just enough Linux to get things done

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Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#81

Post by makapuf »

ProAm wrote: post #66
indescions_2017 wrote: post #9

Great list for starters. But getting real work done requires much more. Having just walked through some basic steps with a novice, I can concur, modern linux is impossible without "recipes". Just setting up a hello world web app can involve: ssh login to running instance, using curl to download the gcloud sdk, tar to unpack, sudo to install, systemctl to start local processes, useradd dedicated www, chmod and chroot…

> For beginners, without a trusted hand to guide them, its beyond intimidating. These systems must become more accessible to the average human. They are not meant for beginners or average people. We have Windows and MacOS for that, once you get to a point where you are thinking about linux you shoudln't be soon 'green'. Just because we have an OS doesn't mean it's meant for everybody.

You do realize that the mainstream, used by everyone OS is actually Linux with a graphical layer now ? Yes I'm talking about Android. The next environment a user can use being a userfriendly desktop such as Ubuntu desktop which is a bit closer to the real Unix, then simple command line. My kids have zero issue with desktop Linux but don't use command-line.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#82

Post by agumonkey »

grx wrote: post #37

This is not a surprise - the Windows ecosystem simply wasn't designed with software development in mind. Aha? What is C# and Visual Studio? Or .NET? Was Linux designed for software development? This article is so bad, I'm really getting mad over here. Stop publishing such crap, you feed a lot of people's resentment against all those hipster developers who don't want to learn by RTFM, but want to have handled everythi…

It's a tiny bit true. Windows was a platform to make Microsoft and other sell software.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#83

Post by ProAm »

makapuf wrote: post #81
ProAm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For beginners, without a trusted hand to guide them, its beyond intimidating. These systems must become more accessible to the average human. They are not meant for beginners or average people. We have Windows and MacOS for that, once you get to a point where you are thinking about linux you shoudln't be soon 'green'. Just because we have an OS doesn't mean it's meant for everybody.

You do realize that the mainstream, used by everyone OS is actually Linux with a graphical layer now ? Yes I'm talking about Android. The next environment a user can use being a userfriendly desktop such as Ubuntu desktop which is a bit closer to the real Unix, then simple command line. My kids have zero issue with desktop Linux but don't use command-line.

Absolutely, but the complaint the poster I was replying to was that, essentially, linux is too hard. Am Im saying its just not for him because thousands upon thousands of people have learned to use it effectively and powerfully.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#84

Post by SaltyBackendGuy »

SquareWheel wrote: post #53
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #28

And not even one mention of man pages... That is was my main resource for learning new (remembering old) commands. Maybe it's out of date now due to google, but if you're already in the terminal man is the way to go. Also, I feel like cat and less should have separate explanations as they have diverging utilities.

There's two mentions of man pages.

I missed in my initial skim

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#85

Post by pjmlp »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #77
pjmlp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?!? Are we talking about Windows 1.0 and 2.0 here? I was using Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ quite nice IDEs on Windows 3.x. Windows has always been a popular development environment for the demoscene, and games developers. The only alternatives being Mac and Amiga, none of them UNIX friendly.

Neither DOS nor Windows had any compiler included. DOS did have a BASIC interpreter, later they did away even with that (with Windows 2000 I think). In Linux you had a rich range of compilers, interpreters and other development tools, right in your distro. I'm talking about late nineties here. The two were absolutely incomparable in this aspect. Although, I have to admit, I preferred Borland's documentation to Linux…

Just like most commercial OSes, including proprietary UNIXes.

Other professions buy their tools.

In any case, most MS-DOS applications were written in Assembly and one could use debug for creating COM executables.

GW-Basic + debug was already a big step forward from using monitor applications with hexdumps on ZX Spectrum and C64.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#86

Post by Bartweiss »

eitland wrote: post #32
Sean1708 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't look any more complex than most man pages: https://linux.die.net/man/1/tar

Part of my point: most of them are complex and to a big degree unnecessarily complex.

It's sort of embarrassing how much less efficient man pages are than a Google search to a SO question.

The justification I usually hear is that SO is for learning to solve one case, while man pages are for learning how the tool works. There's some merit to that, but if a tool has some hidden gotcha or unusual use, SO tends to make that much clearer than the actual documentation.

I suppose comprehensiveness was a higher priority when there wasn't an online discussion of every imaginable case, but it still feels like a lot could be done to convey the same amount of information more gracefully.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#87

Post by anthk »

revelation wrote: post #69
ajross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was Linux designed for software development? Linux was designed to emulate Unix and run the pre-existing Unix-like userspace from GNU. And absolutely yes , Unix was "designed" for software development. That's exactly what it was in its early days: a hacker playground for the geeks at Bell Labs to try new ways of doing things. And windows wasn't. Early windows development (for years after it became popular) was done…

Yeah, software development on Unix was so natural and enjoyable, even today half the time building a Linux library or app is typically spent in byzantine shell scripts trying to determine which particular occult incantation of incompatible or broken Unix you are not running and throwing various test programs at your compiler that last made sense in 1995. The true essence of delightful and plain right software develop…

>The true essence of delightful and plain right software development must be over in OpenBSD land, where they run the one and only gcc 4.2.1

Clang actually.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#89

Post by Bartweiss »

lain wrote: post #63

I don't think I could disagree more with having `man` at the bottom of the advanced/infrequently-used section. Learning how to read and search through the documentation that comes with the system is a very beneficial thing to learn how to do.

I think I agree with the placement. It's definitely a good skill, I wouldn't dispute that, but it really is advanced/infrequent by the standards set here.

Historically that wasn't true, but Stack Overflow has made it vastly easier to answer simple questions ("Which 'ls' flag shows permissions? How about hidden files?") without ever using a man page. You can go a long time without ever touching that and not have problems, while jumping to man pages without experience tends to be an overwhelming jumble of flags and conditions.

Which isn't to say it's low value! Learning Linux well beyond "good enough" is still an enormously worthwhile project. But I do think it's correct to say it's no longer an entry-level step.

Re: Learn just enough Linux to get things done

#90

Post by Bartweiss »

wutbrodo wrote: post #64
dahart wrote: post #59

I’ve always felt there are two different kinds of Unix/Linux: sysadmin vs user. While Linux distros have been getting better and easier for many years, installing and maintaining Linux on my own machine still requires sysadmin Linux knowledge to this day. I personally believe this is why Macs have been so popular since OSX, it’s really the only machine out there that comes with Unix but doesn’t require any sysadmin k…

> While Linux distros have been getting better and easier for many years, installing and maintaining Linux on my own machine still requires sysadmin Linux knowledge to this day. I'm not sure that's true. You can buy a few computers (including from Dell) with Linux pre-installed, and maintenance doesn't take a lot more than clicking on the upgrade button with the daily update-manager prompt. I _do_ have sysadmin knowl…

> I'm not sure that's true. You can buy a few computers (including from Dell) with Linux pre-installed, and maintenance doesn't take a lot more than clicking on the upgrade button with the daily update-manager prompt.

Is it really that good these days?

I can definitely appreciate the constancy of Linux, it feels like Windows/Chrome/etc stacks move under my feet constantly. But my experience with Linux is still that when problems do arise, I have to escalate to shell commands and arcane sysadmin-ry for all but the simplest problems. Windows and OS X still offer a lot more hope of an accessible fix via the GUI or even an automated troubleshooting tool.

It's totally possible I'm dealing with the wrong distros, or am resorting to Linux for weirder tasks and therefore seeing harder problems. But I don't have the sense that Linux is more painless, only that it's less chaotic.

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