small programs used on the command line to do a specific job
4
votes
2answers
161 views
What are all the items on the cover of the “Linux Administration Handbook”?
As I mentioned in What do all the pictures on the front of the "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook" represent? I'm fairly new to Linux and Unix.
@jasonwryan provided an excellent ...
10
votes
1answer
331 views
What do all the pictures on the front of the “Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook” represent?
I'm a newcomer to Unix and Linux, and I've been trying to get up to speed on everything. One of the guides I've used is the "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook"
It's a pretty great book, ...
7
votes
4answers
979 views
creating a sequence of numbers, one per line in a file
Is there a way to create out of thin air, a file that is a sequence of numbers, starting at a given number, one per line?
something like
magic_command start 100 lines 5 > b.txt
and then, b.txt ...
1
vote
1answer
361 views
installing column unix utility on windows
I would like to be able to use the BSD unix utilities: column, join and paste in my Cygwin installation. It seems that they are not available, or I cannot find them. Is there a way to install them so ...
0
votes
1answer
84 views
Eyecandy stuff that gets people's attention [closed]
I don't know if this is the right StackExchange site or a valid question at all, but seeing the success of this one I'll give it a try.
I'll be having a little unix/security stand with my friend on ...
1
vote
1answer
649 views
How synchronize two disks (or folders) using symbolic (or hard) links (like rsync)?
I'm searching a tool or a shell script or another program to synchronize two or more folders or disks.
But it differs of rsync tool, because, I don't want to duplicate the missing file, but do a ...
2
votes
1answer
70 views
How to use the -t option of Unix command look
I'm learning the look utility and I don't understand the meaning of the -t option.
Can someone show me some examples of it?
I read the man page, but still don't know what it exactly means.
2
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is 'df' hanging?
I have recently been having problems running df, where it just hangs. Here's strace output, and in it, you'll see that I killed since it was just sitting there:
$ strace /bin/df
execve("/bin/df", ...
3
votes
2answers
94 views
Unatended script execution in ubuntu terminal
I have installed Ubuntu on a VMWare virtual machine.
When I got to installing a VMWare tools, I have stumbled upon a simple question:
If I execute a script (perl script in VMWare tools case), is ...
5
votes
1answer
318 views
What commands have -h human readable option, and how can I enable it by default w/env variable?
I'm tired of using aliases or typing -h. I want human readable output 24/7. Is there a way to enable it all the time for all commands that offer it?
Thanks.
5
votes
1answer
122 views
How would one detect if external command exists in a script?
Is there a way to detect if an external command exists (i.e. wget, svn)?
More specifically today, i was trying to run one of my scripts i wrote and the person didn't have wget or svn installed.
The ...
0
votes
0answers
27 views
Problem with calling program from the command line [closed]
Note: this is a cross post with this post on SO.
I am trying to build a command line wrapper in Python 3 for an exiting command line tool called 'spooky' and I am having a hard time understanding ...
0
votes
1answer
123 views
Listing only the files in a folder and inside its subfolders
Is there a linux command for getting only the files in a folder and inside its subfolders? I have used the find command, but it is displaying all the files and folders. I am executing this shell ...
3
votes
2answers
130 views
ln gives different results when run multiple times
I have this simple script to use with seventh sense (it's a lone wolf gamebook reader/player):
#!/bin/bash
GAME_PATH=$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")
SEVENTH_SENSE_PATH=$(echo ...
5
votes
1answer
279 views
Can hd and od replace each other?
hd and od are both dump viewers of binary content. Can hd be used wherever od is and vice versa?
1
vote
0answers
183 views
Validating an OpenSSL Cipher List
Are there any tools that can validate an OpenSSL cipher list both syntactically and semantically?
For example, ALL:!LOW:!SSLv2:!EXP:!aNULL is both syntactically and semantically valid cipher list. On ...
1
vote
3answers
409 views
How to determine which executable on my path will be run?
I run which and get the following,
brendan$ which python
/opt/local/bin/python
brendan$ which -a python
/opt/local/bin/python
/usr/bin/python
brendan$ ls -l /opt/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x ...
1
vote
1answer
277 views
Good “progress bar” about md5sum checking progress?
I'm using this right now:
time md5sum -c *.txt | pv | grep -v ': OK$'
but aren't there any smart solutions that can list that how many files haven't been checked? I mean I have many md5sum's in ...
11
votes
4answers
2k views
Usage of dash (-) in place of a filename
For a command, if using - as an argument in place of a file name will mean STDIN or STDOUT.
But in this example, it creates a file with the name -:
echo hello > -
How can I make - in this ...
4
votes
3answers
366 views
General specification for command line interface
I was wondering where I can find and
learn some general idea about the
command line interface used in Linux
and bash?
As to now, I have found pieces of
such information only from
experience, such as
...
2
votes
2answers
5k views
How do I get UUENCODE to work?
I have a server that I have inherited that has an older version of Redhat installed due to software requirements and now there is a need to use UUENCODE to allow email attachments. The uuencode and ...
3
votes
1answer
99 views
Colour problem when capturing a png of the top panel of the screen
I want to capture a window as a png from within a bash script, using the window's ID. In this case, the window is the top panel. Using gnome-screenshot the colours are true, as per this image... ...
2
votes
4answers
4k views
How do I find the X window ID under the mouse pointer in bash?
From a bash script, is there some way to get the ID of the X window under the mouse pointer?
(edit) I need the process to be non-interactive.
3
votes
2answers
129 views
Why do I get a 'conformability error' when I attempt to convert water in GNU units?
I've been using the GNU units program and I seem to think that I should be able to convert water between a volume and a weight.
Examples:
You have: 1 gram water
You want: cm^3
conformability error
...
2
votes
6answers
10k views
Console tool to test internet bandwidth
I'm looking for a tool that will test my internet connection bandwidth and create an simple report like speedtest does.
Do you know some program/tool that do this? Something with CentOS packages ...
4
votes
2answers
837 views
Combine input from multiple files/pipes without clobbering lines or blocking?
Is there a tool that will take input from multiple files or pipes and write it to stdout, without blocking on reads, such that individual input lines come out intact? I basically want to multiplex a ...
11
votes
2answers
827 views
Is '-9' a flag to kill command?
What does -9 do?
It does not show up in the syntax:
$ kill
kill: usage: kill [-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigspec] pid | jobspec ... or kill -l [sigspec]
$
1
vote
3answers
315 views
Sort data on multiple columns
INPUT (unsorted, bad)
"XYZ-ZTE-43255 serverB618 agreed","XYZ-ZTE-44432"
,"XYZ-ZTE-43255"
"XYZ-ZTE-52775 serverB110 agreed",
"XYZ-ZTE-79213 - serverB688 agreed",
"XYZ-ZTE-77323 serverB617 agreed",
...
1
vote
1answer
769 views
e2fsck progress bar?
How can I see the progress of e2fsck in the terminal? Are there any pv like ways?
For example how can I see how far along this command is in progress:
e2fsck -f -y -v /dev/sdb1
2
votes
2answers
2k views
In UNIX, how to find the most commonly used commands in history of unix?
In UNIX, how to find the most commonly used commands in history?
3
votes
4answers
8k views
How to recover data from a bad SD card?
I have a 4GB SD card with some family pictures on it that I need to recover. When I insert the card into my card reader, it shows up as an unknown 32MB device (as /dev/sde) and cannot be mounted. When ...
2
votes
2answers
508 views
Why is bash completion of a symlink different than a directory?
I usually do a find with an environment variable as the path when searching for source code. Recently I replaced my environment variable with a symbolic link, and it broke Bash's shell completion. ...
12
votes
3answers
1k views
Why use superflous dash (-) to pass option flags to tar?
To create a tar file for a directory, the tar command with compress, verbose and file options can be typed thus:
$ tar -cvf my.tar my_directory/
But it also works to do it this way:
$ tar cvf ...
4
votes
5answers
2k views
Alternative to find?
Is there an alternative find program with a more conventional CLI interface? find works and expects parameters in a painfully different way from most other utils.
Clarification: I'm looking for a ...
2
votes
1answer
43 views
Explain the output of -D rates in GNU find
I did
~/pythonsource1/python2.6-2.6.5$ find -D rates . -type d
and got
Predicate success rates after completion:
[need type] -type d [0.4] [280/4350=0.0643678] -a [0.4] [280/4350=0.0643678] ...
2
votes
1answer
319 views
ntop versus mrtg
I'm evaluating tools for measuring network activity and although mrtg seems to be the most highly regarded, I'm really impressed by ntop. Are there any reasons that mrtg is preferred to ntop?
1
vote
1answer
67 views
Good base converter or help using gbase?
Dear all,
Could you suggest a good base converter that also does "signed" conversions? Either gbase does not do it, or I can't see how it's done. Any help would be great. What I want to do is give the ...
4
votes
2answers
3k views
How can I test the encoding of a text file… Is it valid, and what is it?
I have several .htm files which open in Gedit without any warning/error, but when I open these same file in Jedit, it warns me of invalid UTF-8 encoding...
The html meta tag states ...
26
votes
4answers
2k views
What is the difference between a builtin command and one that is not?
Is there any intrinsic difference between a builtin command and another command which can nominally do the same thing?
eg. Do builtins get "special" treatement? ... is there less overhead running ...
30
votes
2answers
6k views
What does “--” (double-dash) mean?
I have seen -- used in the compgen command.
For example:
compgen -W "foo bar baz" -- b
What is the meaning of the --.
21
votes
6answers
2k views
Linux tools to treat files as sets and perform set operations on them
Does anyone know of any linux tool specifically designed to treat files as sets and perform set operations on them? Like difference, intersection, etc?
3
votes
2answers
309 views
How do I time a specific command?
(The linux equivalent of TimeThis.exe)
Something like:
timethis wget foo.com
Receiving foo.com
...
wget foo.com took 3 seconds.
16
votes
4answers
6k views
What is the mknod command used for?
I just started using Ubuntu as my main OS and I wanted to learn about things I should not do, and learn by the bad things people have done in the past. I came across these email about horror stories ...
6
votes
1answer
246 views
Is there a way to make perl -i not clobber symlinks?
A friend of mine points out that if you do:
perl -pi.bak -e 's/foo/bar/' somefile
when "somefile" is actually a symlink, perl does just what the docs say it will do:
It does this by renaming ...
0
votes
1answer
77 views
Sources to learn about performing certain tasks on command line?
Can someone transform it into community wiki please? I guess I've got no privileges for that.
Let's list practical sources for learning about performing certain tasks on *nix command line.
E.g. I ...
11
votes
4answers
2k views
Setting the window dimensions of a running application
I'm trying to start an application within Ubuntu (xfce or gnome) and via the
command line and was wondering if there's a generic way to set the dimensions of a
given window of a given app that is ...
3
votes
2answers
868 views
9
votes
3answers
404 views
Doing two things with output from a command
I have a program texcount that outputs the number of words in my LaTeX document. I can also pipe the output of this to sed to make the newlines TeX linebreaks and write this to a file which I can then ...
5
votes
1answer
300 views
How to use the ul command line utility
I wanted to answer http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/3043/use-roff-to-underline-words with "just use ul, this command is meant specifically for underlining text", however I just can't grasp how ...
4
votes
1answer
297 views
Difference between references of Linux “utilities”, “commands” and “programs”
I read uses of the word "utilities" for commands/programs such as 'ls', 'chmod', 'mv', etc.
Is "commands" is Linux referring to the same things as top, ps, etc., or are those something different? ...
