Live data from Hacker News

Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

gitlab.com

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kano looks amazing. I wish it wasn't Windows even though I'm sure it would be a bad idea for most people to run Linux on it. But what a cool company. The peripherals are so cool. Anyone know of a similar option for Linux based kids computer?

The original Kano Computer Kit is Linux-based! You can run it on a Raspberry Pi or purchase the Raspberry Pi kit. Personally I just flashed the OS on a flash drive. https://kano.me/us/downloadable It's only the newer Kano laptop that's Windows-based.

Is there hardware for this one?

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#22
post #6

It's one thing that so many people who really should know better call anything Unix-y Linux. Now we're completely going the whole way and calling macOS Linux, too? It's pedantic, I know, but when I see this, I can't help but imagine the person who chose to use the phrase "Linux commands" doesn't really know what they're doing.

I'm fine with being pedantic. However, they _are_ "Linux commands", they're just not exclusively so (and no, I'm not going to get into 'but Linux is a kernel ...').

It's like having 'a guide to kitchen tools' and you complain that cleavers are also used outside kitchens -- for sure, but they're still "kitchen tools".

A lot of people won't be using a POSIX shell, XNU is what it says it is, ... what are you going to call it? 'Linux-like commands'? You're going to lose a load of learners who are looking for 'the command line, y'know, linux' rather than something that's not it but is like it.

Kinda a premature specification.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#23
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Kano Computer Kit is Linux-based! You can run it on a Raspberry Pi or purchase the Raspberry Pi kit. Personally I just flashed the OS on a flash drive. https://kano.me/us/downloadable It's only the newer Kano laptop that's Windows-based.

Is there hardware for this one?

Nothing special. They sell a kit that includes a bluetooth keyboard and a case and stuff, but there's nothing particular about it, besides branding.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#24

I learned with Kano OS (kid's computer kit) running on a Raspberry Pi at age 12. A similar console-type game that taught me all the common commands still sticks with me to this day. This will be a good refresher, years later. :) https://allthingsd.com/20131203/the-99-kids-computer-kit-kan...

> I learned with Kano OS (kid's computer kit) running on a Raspberry Pi at age 12.

I wish I had been able to use a Pi at age 12. :) I had a Commodore64 that I LOVED.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there hardware for this one?

Nothing special. They sell a kit that includes a bluetooth keyboard and a case and stuff, but there's nothing particular about it, besides branding.

Ok. I actually could not find that, do you have a link?

This is still great, and thanks for sharing. I'm just looking for the perfect combination of durability, hackability and as free from commercial (ad vehicles) as possible.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#26
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing special. They sell a kit that includes a bluetooth keyboard and a case and stuff, but there's nothing particular about it, besides branding.

Ok. I actually could not find that, do you have a link? This is still great, and thanks for sharing. I'm just looking for the perfect combination of durability, hackability and as free from commercial (ad vehicles) as possible.

It's gone from their store page, but you can find listings on Ebay and Amazon, as well as info on their help page [0]. As far as I can tell it was just sold as "Kano Kit" with a raspberry pi, bluetooth keyboard. (Kano Kit Touch seems to be another one they sell, with a touch screen; then there's the laptop they sell nowadays)

Not quite sure why it's gone from their homepage, seems to be discontinued as per B&H listing [1].

[0]: https://help.kano.me/hc/en-us

[1]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1450064-REG/kano_1000...

However, I recommend simply buying a generic Raspberry Pi kit (usb power supply, kb+mouse, HDMI cable, case, etc) and just flashing Kano OS onto it. It's essentially the same experience.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#27
post #12

This looks neat. Once upon a time -- back in the 80s -- there was a utility called 'learn' that was a Unix command line tutorial. After each lesson, you could do these exercises where you were dropped into a fake shell, replete with fake directories and that, and had to get things into a certain expected state. They were typical business-related tasks, nothing cool and dungeon-y, but I learned my basic Unix commands…

Reminds me a little of one of the games built into emacs... You ftp around and do other stuff that teaches you commands. Not positive, might be called dunnet.

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#28
post #12

This looks neat. Once upon a time -- back in the 80s -- there was a utility called 'learn' that was a Unix command line tutorial. After each lesson, you could do these exercises where you were dropped into a fake shell, replete with fake directories and that, and had to get things into a certain expected state. They were typical business-related tasks, nothing cool and dungeon-y, but I learned my basic Unix commands…

Not a game, but smit/smitty[0] built shell command lines that you could review before running them.

It wasn't so useful for me, except for some ksh[1] eccentricities, but I imagine it was (and perhaps still is -- I haven't used AIX in almost two decades) quite useful for novices.

[0] https://developer.ibm.com/articles/au-smit/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KornShell

Re: Bashcrawl: Learn Linux commands by playing a simple text adventure

#29

This is the future of learning anything. I would rather play an engaging game than read 300 pages of text book and still has to Google for doing anything meaningful.

I can't learn anything really new to me by simply reading. Very much a hands on guy. School was hard. But not everyone is like that and while I agree that learning should be fun, I would very much like to not force what works for me on everyone else. One man's fun is another man's nightmare

It is like video and text. Text is so much denser and invoke your mental process. But seeing dune vs reading dune. No ether or I guess. Education process should tailor for individual. In ideal situation…
Post reply on HN