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The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

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Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#31

Post by gbog »

jshen wrote: post #30
gbog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just one example of the tone of this book, and I just don't like it, and I don't understand why it has so many supposedly adult people accepting things like: > No, seriously, type it 20 times and say it out loud. Sssh. Just do it. I supposed it was a kind of cold joke but it appears not to be. It is just very disrespectful for the reader. Grown up human beings are not to be taken by the hand like /this/ to le…

Grown adults are taught in a manner similar this everyday in basic training for the army. They teach far more serious topics, and it's effective. Also, smart people learn to skim and skip when needed. Writing like thus serves both cause the smarter ones skip.

You can't seriously compare teaching command line kungfu to some wannabee geeks in their spare time with the hardcore brainwashing given to infantry troops so they acquire enough Pavlovian reflex to stand and run below a shower of bombs and bullets.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#32

Post by jshen »

gbog wrote: post #31
jshen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grown adults are taught in a manner similar this everyday in basic training for the army. They teach far more serious topics, and it's effective. Also, smart people learn to skim and skip when needed. Writing like thus serves both cause the smarter ones skip.

You can't seriously compare teaching command line kungfu to some wannabee geeks in their spare time with the hardcore brainwashing given to infantry troops so they acquire enough Pavlovian reflex to stand and run below a shower of bombs and bullets.

Your characterization of both is wrong.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#33

Post by VonLipwig »

gbog wrote: post #21

On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.

If you don't like it use something else.

Copy and pasting usually means you never knew what the code said anyway.

Typing it once means you will remember it till the end of the day but tomorrow? The day after?

Typing it 20 times and saying it out loud to yourself helps it stick. There is no need to run to Google to look up the command. You should know it after doing it this many times. Especially if in the following days you recap with some basic memory exercises.

I have always thought that this is what set's Zed Shaw's books apart. They teach you a language in a way that sticks.

If you don't find it useful or for your style of learning pick up a book focusing more on theory rather than doing.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#34

Post by dangrossman »

jimmyjim wrote: post #3

> The next warning is stay off IRC or other places where "hackers" hang out. They think it's funny to hand you commands that can destroy your computer. The command rm -rf / is a classic that you must never type. Just avoid them. If you need help, make sure you get it from someone you trust not from random idiots on the internet. I don't really agree with that. I know for sure that popular channels in OFTC and Freenod…

My first experience on IRC was looking for help with my first Linux install. Someone in the channel telnet'd into my computer and wiped my hard drive while I was chatting.

I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and my root password was one of those common strings (12345, abcde, I don't remember at this point). It had taken me 3 days to learn how to download Linux, make a stack of installation floppies, find and use partitioning tools, install Linux and set up a boot loader, etc. I cried when I realized what had been done to me.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#35

Post by dredmorbius »

dangrossman wrote: post #34
jimmyjim wrote: post #3

> The next warning is stay off IRC or other places where "hackers" hang out. They think it's funny to hand you commands that can destroy your computer. The command rm -rf / is a classic that you must never type. Just avoid them. If you need help, make sure you get it from someone you trust not from random idiots on the internet. I don't really agree with that. I know for sure that popular channels in OFTC and Freenod…

My first experience on IRC was looking for help with my first Linux install. Someone in the channel telnet'd into my computer and wiped my hard drive while I was chatting. I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and my root password was one of those common strings (12345, abcde, I don't remember at this point). It had taken me 3 days to learn how to download Linux, make a stack of installation floppies, find and use part…

Unless someone 'fessed up to it, you really have no way of knowing who did this. It could just as easily have been a drive-by script.

And regardless, it was a hard, cheap, early lesson in the importance of ensuring fundamental levels of system security. I've ... suffered worse.

I strongly suspect you'll never forget this.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#36

Post by dredmorbius »

gbog wrote: post #21

On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.

It's handy in a multi-user environment when you're sudo/su -ing to various users. I'll use it reasonably frequently to test that sudo works as anticipated. "sudo whoami" should return "root".

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#37

Post by gcb »

always considered myself an ace of the command line... heck for some time i even used X only for webbrowser (while cursing) and used TTY1 for vim and TTY2 for a shell where i'd run version control commands and build...

but yesterday, installing debian-testing on a new notebook, the radeon cards didn't worked out even with the vesa drivers and i had to use the console for a few hours...

i panicked when i realized I had no idea how to bring the wifi up.

...and everytime something like this happens (previous one was some punk changing the kernel parameter "single" or "1" or "init 1" to "text")... i feel old and outdated. it hurts.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#38

Post by dangrossman »

dredmorbius wrote: post #35
dangrossman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first experience on IRC was looking for help with my first Linux install. Someone in the channel telnet'd into my computer and wiped my hard drive while I was chatting. I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and my root password was one of those common strings (12345, abcde, I don't remember at this point). It had taken me 3 days to learn how to download Linux, make a stack of installation floppies, find and use part…

Unless someone 'fessed up to it, you really have no way of knowing who did this. It could just as easily have been a drive-by script. And regardless, it was a hard, cheap, early lesson in the importance of ensuring fundamental levels of system security. I've ... suffered worse. I strongly suspect you'll never forget this.

This being more than a decade and a half ago, I doubt it was a drive-by script. I was dialed into AOL on a 4 letter screen name. I had just informed a channel of Linux users, who knew my public IP, that I had just installed Linux for the first time. The chances it wasn't someone from that IRC channel are near zero.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#39

Post by jodrellblank »

gbog wrote: post #21

On page 3, about "whoami" > type this command 20 times and say it out loud I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.

I don't like being taken for a child.

That's a problem with you which you should fix, instead of getting all defensive and whiny.

Re: The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal

#40

Post by gbog »

jshen wrote: post #32
gbog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't seriously compare teaching command line kungfu to some wannabee geeks in their spare time with the hardcore brainwashing given to infantry troops so they acquire enough Pavlovian reflex to stand and run below a shower of bombs and bullets.

Your characterization of both is wrong.

Pray explain a bit in which ways my characterization of both is wrong.

(As any short description, my "portrait" maybe a bit of a caricature but I believe it expresses the meaning well enough.)

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