A nice video introduction to the Linux terminal

Pedantry is baked in to this realm.

8 Likes

It’s included on this “simplified” diagram of unix history, the PDF prints on 37 pages.

5 Likes

Ah, but when you get to the Terminal, it’s good to remember that all computers are pedants to the extreme. Many a Linux nerd gets flummoxed when trying some power move on my Mac, because the Linux command he was trying to use wasn’t in the Posix common core, or the file isn’t under /etc but /usr/local/etc, or how su root won’t work, and so on. So then he lets off another rant about how Macs are evil, blah blah blah. Oh, and a lot of times the setup how-tos in the companies I have worked for have been written just for Ubuntu, and never updated for the Mac users until I do the dirty work.

7 Likes

It’s not the behavior of top I was typically used to, to be sure, but if you read the manual, things become more clear.

(Also, while in top, you can set arguments. For instance in your example, typing o will invoke a keyprompt, so you can then type cpu to get processes sorted by cpu usage.)

(Edited to add “usage” before pedantry.)

2 Likes

Someone could do a video about this. Been using the CLI since 1990 (forgive me, but I do not miss using the VAX), but I’d watch that video.

Just sayin’.

2 Likes

It gets tricky. At some point “Unix” became a brand, you need to meet specific criteria and buy in to be “Unix”. So otyers may not be unux because numbers body’s paid tge fee.

I once mentioned Coherent in alt.folklore.computers and Dennis Ritchie said it was very Unix-like.

Unix was in demand so there were endless attempts. Microware OS-9 was a good learning experience, multitasking and multiuser, clearly influenced by Unix, but not Unix. Others were expensive and esoteric, but were very much like unix. And others were Unix in everything but name, legal requirements coming into play. Microsoft’s Xenix was an example, they bought the rights to the source code.

Coherent was more Unux than I thought, but I gather didn’t use Unix source code.

I wanted Coherent, but no version for my comouter. I did have Mark Williams C, that included unix-like shell.

2 Likes

“If you have a Macintosh, you can enter the Unix terminal by opening Terminal.app. (There’s a way to do it in Windows, too, but I don’t know how.) From there, you have command-line control of your computer.”

I think the author was just trying to say that all 3 operating systems have some sort of CLI (command line interface)
Although some are more powerful than others. The author could have done a little research. It wouldn’t have taken much to find Windows command line interface can be accessed by entering CMD or command.com to start the CLI in Windows. It’s not as powerful as the Linux terminal but not the mess good too know if you’re a Windows user

Let me tell you about unix tools in windows:

2 Likes

I believe Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX are all currently supported on x86. I just don’t know who would actually want to run them.

3 Likes

IRIX, baby. IRIX.

“And you thought supercomputers were expensive!”

(Yes, that’s correct.)

4 Likes

But damn did they ever have some spectacular industrial design. The Indigo2 is a work of art that could only come out of the 1990s.

5 Likes

What is the command for entering the card punch interface?

1 Like

Really? Chacun a son gout.

You jest, but internally each linux console is known as a ‘tty’, which is short for ‘teletypewriter’, because, yes, they were originally an extension of the teletype standard (but with lower case!).
When you understand that most *nix tools were originally written to be run on actual, physical, teletype machines, you start to understand some of the design decisions behind them (such as passing data between programs as a single long string of characters).

I’m surprised we’re this far into a thread on CLIs, and no one has trolled the linux geeks by mentioning PowerShell yet. It’s Microsoft’s version of Bash+standard *nix tools, but because it was developed in this century, it’s a lot more consistent.

But… But… This sort of pedantry is exactly why I’m reading this thread tho. :yum:

3 Likes

My favorite was always the Indigo. Followed by the Onyx, then the Octane, only slightly less heavy. Still love the Indy, too, though I haven’t powered it on in a while.

Also, not to be a pedant, but, isn’t it basically an xterm? Short for terminal? So the OP is correct (even technically correct) anyway? Because it’s a shell running in a window like you’d use an actual hardware terminal?

That sort of pedantry (it’s since been corrected in the original post) also draws a lot of people to this stuff. They can be right!

For example, I made two mistakes in the same comment section (by saying that Xubuntu didn’t have a screensaver module, when it in fact does – it’s Debian 10’s live Xfce CD that doesn’t have a screensaver module; and by saying that Linux Mint’s XApps were written from scratch, when they were largely forked from the equivalent Gnome utilities). I got called on each one. Guess that’ll show me!

2 Likes

Terminal Emulator for Android gives your phone a command line.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.