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Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

danielmiessler.com

31–40 of 95 posts

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#31
post #20

Why do programs that only work on OS X always end up on lists of "Unix" programs?

OSX is unix, in the same way that Solaris or AIX is, but I'd have split them out in a separate section for OSX specific Unix software.

Exactly - OS X is Unix(tm), but davexunit's complaint is that the term "Unix commands" implies "commands that will work on all/most UNIX/POSIX systems", not "commands for a single OS that happens also to be a UNIX".

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#32
post #21
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: vim: attack yourself Emacs user?

Emacs User at Work: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/029/8/3/emacs_user_at...

I still don't get how emacs ever got that image..

I never have to press more than two keys at a time, which is also true for vim..

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#34
post #24
post #11

Site's non-responsive now, wonder what the list was? I'll vote for "yes" which at least seems intuitively useful in a "yes | rm -i something" kind of way. Well that specific example is useless... Also over two decades ago if you obtained access to someones account it was considered highly amusing to end their .profile with a call to /bin/yes. Oh and before the newfangled /dev/urandom (or /dev/zero) we used to redirec…

column: create columns from text input tr: translate/substitute/delete input join: like a database join but for text comm: file comparison like a db join paste: put lines in a file next to each other rs: reshape arrays jot: generate data expand: replace spaces and/or tabs time: track how long a task takes to run watch: execute something on a schedule in realtime xargs: execute something on all inputs iftop: visually…

whatis when unsure of what a command does is quite helpful and displays short manual page descriptions, for instance some metaphysical question: > whatis time

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#37
post #20

Why do programs that only work on OS X always end up on lists of "Unix" programs?

OSX is unix, in the same way that Solaris or AIX is, but I'd have split them out in a separate section for OSX specific Unix software.

Agreed. Anything that is not part of the SUS or POSIX standards should be in a separate section indicating their origin/availability.

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#38
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX is unix, in the same way that Solaris or AIX is, but I'd have split them out in a separate section for OSX specific Unix software.

Exactly - OS X is Unix(tm), but davexunit's complaint is that the term "Unix commands" implies "commands that will work on all/most UNIX/POSIX systems", not "commands for a single OS that happens also to be a UNIX".

Which most likely only happens because the majority of HN users only know either GNU/Linux or Mac OS X as UNIX and never really used the big commercial ones.

Every time someone mentions here how POSIX and C are portable across UNIXes, I have recolletions of maintaining code full of #ifdefs to make it work across such "portable" systems.

Not to mention how nice the Makefiles used to be.

Re: Less Commonly Used Unix Commands

#40

Why do programs that only work on OS X always end up on lists of "Unix" programs?

"The most common version of Unix (bearing certification) is Apple's OS X" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

Mac OS X being UNIX certified, does not mean all Mac OS X commands are available across all UNIX variants.

It rather implies that Mac OS X supports what UNIX certification requires, plus whatever extensions Apple does on top.

This was always the main issue with POSIX compatibility fragmentation across UNIX platforms.

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