Hello everyone.

Introduction

As I'm on Christmas Holidays,
now I have some little time to spend on learning.

So what I want to ask is:

The question

What are the default tools used by most distributions?
Note: This includes, embedded distros, BSD's systems, Unix-like...

I'm asking this because nowadays distributions come with more and more software.
But as far as I know "binutils", "bash", "grep", "ed" and "awk" are standards.

Could someone please suggest me the standards utilities to start learning that are most cross-platform [i.e.: the "shells", "services", "editors" and others].

Thanks!

I'd suggest that you learn (in no particular order)

• regular expressions -- useful across the board; in editors and shell programming -- get good at these and life is easier.
• vi -- you need know an editor, vi is pretty much standard equipment on all Linux and Unix systems.
• awk -- you can do a tremendous amount of useful work with awk.
• shell programming -- Unix-like systems (including Linux) are built on a pipes-and-filters model (kinda) and shell programming (aka "scripts") is critical to being able to actually do stuff. Doesn't matter which shell you learn, BASH, Korn Shell, Bourne Shell (your can probably forget about C-shell, though, without missing out on anything). BASH and Korn Shell are "supersets" of the Bourne Shell (the sh one).
• A Programming Language -- C is good, C++ is good.
• A Procedural Language -- Python can be useful. So can others.
• SQL -- Structured Query Language -- SQL -- is good to know if you're ever going to do anything with data base management systems. Those would be MySQL, PostgreSQL and others are all SQL (pronounced ess-cue-ell, not see-quill).
• HTTP -- Going to do a web page? Probably ought to know something about this. The GUI web page builders are useful, but you don't have a clue what you just did when you use them.
• PHP -- Going to to a web page that queries a data base? Good to know about this, too.
• General Utilities -- get to know grep (regular expressions come in handy here), get to know find. They'll help -- a lot.
• man -- read the man pages... and read the see also man pages. Lots and lots of good information there.

Once you've got those mastered you'll be ready to delve into system configuration, daemons, creating your own utilities and that sort of thing; gotta learn to crawl before you can leap tall buildings with a running start.

Bear in mind that all Linux distributions come with literally hundreds (if not thousands) of utilities, all of which are intended to be useful -- start with a good introduction to Linux (there are some here at LQ and you really can't go wrong with O'Reilly books (http://oreilly.com/).

Hope this helps some.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for that one ;}

It always makes me cringe when I hear even DBAs use see-quill, the name
of a long dead precursor to ess-cue-ell ...

Along the same line - it makes me cringe how people refer to
Post-greS-cue-ell as post-gre or post-gre-see-quill.



Cheers,
Tink

Thanks for the responses.

I already have some "sh", c, c++, xml, html, javascript, css, man pages search, grep experience(basic though).
but as with school I only learn to use microsoft office, dreamweaver and other proprietary programs,
and the time we spend on it is so big, I almost don't have time to keep track of the things I learned(forgetting).

I probably won't have time to learn it all on 1 week or so... but thanks for the effort.
About the documentation I know where to find it, don't worry but thanks for the suggestions.

thanks again, cheers!

Why do you need to know how to use MS Office or Dreamweaver if you're interested in Linux?

The education system?

@coexistance: good fortune with your week's freedom and the chance to look around the world of Linux. With "some "sh", c, c++, xml, html, javascript, css, man pages search, grep" already it sounds as if you are off to a good start. Your "About the documentation I know where to find it" and starting this thread shows you know how to find out more when you want. Regards "I almost don't have time to keep track of the things I learned(forgetting)" we all learn differently but for most of us learning about Linux (it never stops and that is half the fun of it) is like learning a language -- it needs practice -- but going back to "forgotten" things they come back quickly.

@MTK358 & @catkin
Yeah... The education system on my country isn't the best(but not the worst at all)
"My country see the future on proprietary software"...

And thank you catkin, If I learn enough things, may I should post a "1 week of learning" thread at members successful stories.

And yeah... sorry I still have the old habbit of asking questions that I know I can find about it,
I don't make it on purpose though, I just have the hope that a expert on the subject could post a super tip of information(so that I could move on faster from there on)...

But still, yeah I have to leave that old habbit sorry again.

About forgetting stuff, I try to keep the hang on stuff I learned earlier, but may I'm looking for it the bad way,
may have to re-learn again and learn, can give me ideas or instructions I didn't know before.

Thanks everyone, cheers!

So they force you to learn proprietary software, and you can't really choose not to?

@MTK358

I can when I get graduated probably... that's the time we actually get the chance to opt for something on particular.
From now I just have to deal with the choices of the government which opted for deals with proprietary companies.