tar czf my_settings.tar.gz ~/.<your_setting_file/directory> && scp my_settings.tar.gz my_user@some.safe.host:.


Cheers,
Tink

Not that devious - he should've used ; instead of && to avoid the possibility of not shutting down if, for some bizarre reason, the rm fails.

I use the CLI all the time.. I have never used any linux file manager. I prefer zsh to bash, but that's personal preference really. try doing something like with a GUI. Not fun.

Just some other magic from the CLI, if for some reason, you do not know what the BOFH is, you simple use this:

Now have you ever seen such simplicity in a GUI???

I love the command line, but I can see where it gets frustrating. I haven't used the command line in a while simply because I have found all the necessary programs that eliminate the need of the Terminal, but I have always used the command line for one thing: moving files and folders because if I aim in slightly the wrong places, then only God knows where that is gonna GO! Really, the command is more precise as has more advantages than the GUI.

And I agree, that Linux isn't an operating system for everyone. If you're gonna use Linux then you have to have determination and persistence to succeed with the command line. And if you don't appreciate the precense of a terminal, command line, and the underlying text layer, then you don't appreicate Linux. IT AIN'T THE OPERATING SYSTEM FOR YOU! STOP BITCHING AND GO BACK TO WINDOZE!

My wife sits at her desk, next to mine, with Win xp, and points and clicks ad nauseum, trying to find out where and what does what she wants it to do. She refuses, REFUSES I say, to even consider Linux as an alternative. While she points-and-clicks, trying to find where microsucks put this or that, I just open a term window, enter a dos-like command line expression (STILL AVAILABLE IN LINUX AND OTHER UNIX COMPATIBLE SYSTEMS) and have done with it, while I watch the result take place in my file manager, and she's still pointing-and-clicking!

!nuf said.

I haven't found this to be true for Linspire, Mepis, or Blag at all.

megadeth, no need to be quite so harsh.

I agree. People moving to Linux are often extremely frustrated by the fact that it is so different to Windows. This is partly our fault: Linux advocates, for a while now, have been extolling Linux's virtues as an "easy OS".

We help people with Linux, we don't call them whiners.

So how do you suggest that one, to give a simple example, greps 10,000 files for some pattern and pipes the result through sort, using a mouse? You appear to forget that few programs are fully standalone applications.

The shell is used for getting things done, GUIs are little more than gimmicky tomfoolery.

Besides, it's not CLI vs GUI that is the issue, the CLI is the embodiment of the unix pilosophy. The whole point is that you have cheap process creation so that programs can be linked (e.g. piped) together in an infinite variety of ways.

If you choose to use a GUI interface to converse with your computer, that's fine, but without the power of shell scripting, that bloated KDE/GNOME tat that you use would not exist.

Nor would the internet.

By the way, how do you think your posts to this forum are handled? You think someone trained a monkey to sit there clicking buttons to register your post?

I started my journey to using PC's through the spectrum, CLI; DOS, CLI; Win95, based on a CLI; Win98, again sits on top of a CLI. I then moved into Win XP and was a little disappointed that I had lost a bit of the power I once had by stopping windows from booting and using a CLI. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that a CLI is the ultimate, I'm saying that you use the right tool for the job, they are symbiotic. Sometimes I want to use a GUI because they can be more intuituve and I can get the same results. Sometimes I want to use a CLI because I have more power, can do (some) things more efficiently and essentially that is how i learned to use a computer. I say, it does. End of.
X is nice but so is the CLI.
As for the windows vs linux undercurrent running through all of this, again I can't understand why there has to be such hatred and venom behind it. Linux has a longer lineage and is obviously more powerful and secure. However, can you imagine your grandparents being able to grasp it and use it safely and with no problems. This is why windows is good. It makes the PC accessible and easy and why is that bad. Sure I have cursed at Bill Gates many times but I know how to deal with the most of the problems and move on. If you want to talk stability my windows pc currently has more uptime than my linux box. both stay on all the time, neither gives me trouble. I haven't seen a blue screen of death since I forgot to turn on my watercooler and the processor overheated sometime last year.
All that said linux is awesome too I love the filesystem in linux. Its the everything under one roof approach, mounting filesystems is easy.
I have had a lot of problems getting used to linux, mostly because I only just started using it but I had lots of problems using DOS when I first started. The difference is I never had access to forums like this in the DOS days.
In summary I like linux, I like windows xp. So I use both.

P.S. ssh is great

Typical question: I remember using DOS back in the old days but now we have GUIs, Aren't terminals outdated?

Answer: You're confusing DOS with all command line interfaces (CLI). DOS and the set of CLI programs that come with it is pathetic - it doesn't have a fraction of the capabilities of a Linux shell with even just the basic Linux/Unix utilities. Not to mention thehuge array of command line programs available in a typical distro such as cdrecord, transcode etc. CLIs offer a way for power-users to combine programs together to do things that they can't do with a GUI, either on Windows or Linux.

Question: But isn't it old fashioned and very user-unfriendly for most people, I know I never want to have to use a terminal?

Answer: On most modern desktop-oriented Linux distros you don't have to. As long as all the common desktop applications and configuration tools are there you should never have to open a terminal screen, modern Linux distros are very, very close to this ideal nowadays. However the advantage of Linux is that all the power and flexibility of CLI programs are still there for users who opt to go that way.

Question: I'm a sysadmin in the Windows world and I hate CLI, why should I have to learn to use a CLI just to use Linux?

Answer: There's nothing stopping you running your workstation in KDE or GNOME, editing config files in a nice GUI text editor and/or using software like webmin and your distro's 'control centre' to provide a nice GUI configuration interface to your system. Anyway if you've taken the time and effort to learn how to use other complex pieces of software (MS Exchange, Active Directory, SQL Server for example) learning a straight-forward CLI like Bash should be a breeze. You'll quickly find that you can administer your systems much more quickly and far more flexibly with the Linux CLI than you could administer Windows with its myriad dialogs and GUIs and RSI-inducing mouse clicking.

Argh!

Asking such a question means that you spent to much time on Windows.

Once you know what you are doing, the line command is much more efficient, faster, it gives you more control and is much less cpu-costly.

Anyway, doing everything with a gui is really against what I feel Linux is about.

You don't use a screwdriver to pound a nail in or a hammer to screw a screw in.
The commandline is great for some tasks. The GUI is great for some tasks. Use what's appropriate.
Bikes aren't outdated because of cars. Cars aren't outdated because of planes. Planes aren't outdated because of space shuttles.

I you don't like using the CLI, imagine using punch cards. That was what I used when I had a fortran class in college.