[PLUG] Debian virgin preparing to take the plunge

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Fri Apr 27 05:39:28 UTC 2007


On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:29:16 -0700
"Rogan Creswick" <creswick at gmail.com> dijo:

> On 4/26/07, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:59:42 -0700
> >
> > The various command line tools and their options might be a good topic
> > for a hands on learning event.
> 
> _Unix_Power_Tools_, (Peek, O'Reilly, and Loukides) is a good book for
> command-line tips and tricks. ISBN: 1-56592-260-3.  It's easy to pick
> up (well, it's a huge book, but figuratively) and read a couple
> paragraphs at random--you're bound to lean something, and the
> information density is very high.  (eg: This is how you use X, and if
> X doesn't do exactly what you want, you can use Y and Z to make it
> behave in your specific situation...)
> 
> The tools are generally "old school" and some of the content (at least
> in the second edition) is becoming dated, but I still find it valuable
> to have around.

I already have a couple such books and I have learned from them. What I
was thinking of was a training session, not a "here, go read about it"
session. Both have their place, but one thing I know about learning is
that some of us learn much better by doing it than by being told about
it. One thing I always try to do when helping someone at the Clinics is
to have them enter the command, click on the icon, launch the program,
etc. It sticks a lot better when they do it themselves. 

The reason I thought of package tools as a topic is because I have just
in the past few days been needing them *a lot* with the Feisty upgrade.
I found that I needed to know the options, especially things like
--purge and --force. (If you are reading between the lines, you have
probably gathered that the upgrade did not go smoothly.) 

However, there are a number of other command line topics that would be
useful, e.g., file management. And the absolute beginners could use
things like auto-completion, arrow keys, and such. 

At one time I had the idea of an interactive web site where people
could practice command line tools. I.e., if they entered the wrong
command the web site would give them instant feedback and explanation.
Unfortunately, I concluded that I will never have the time to do it
myself, and I doubt anyone else here does either. Might be a good
project for a high school kid who knows and likes Linux.

Enough rambling. Bedtime.



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