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I'm trying to learn to use the shell. What are some things to with linux? I hear people talk about changing repositories and installing programs and making their own. I'm currently using ubuntu 12.04. I have Linux in a Nutshell book to use as reference but I don't know what I can do with the shell that would beinteresting and at the same time would help me learn more about linux. I would like to hear some suggestions
a very good source that is often recommended is the "rute book" (not its formal title). Among other things it gives quite a nice introduction to using the command line in section 4. See http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
I can't really tell you what to use the command line for since I don't know what types of things you want to do, but reading the above tutorial is likely to give you some ideas.
With linux, you can enter into the GUI mode and do all office work. (UBUNTU should already have installed it all). You probably know this already.
In addition to providing the prompt for typing commands, the shell comes with a lot of versatile non GUI programs that TOGETHER provide a set of tools for manipulating data in collections of files. In Linux these programs mostly follow a standard pattern so that you can pass the data outputted by one program as input to the next.
Additionally you can embed SQL commands (that manipulate data bases) in shell "scripts". These scripts are bundled set of commands that you build to automate assignments.
Using these features alone, you can do a lot of DBA and analyst work.
Music server: mpd
File server: samba / nfs / sshfs
Remote management: ssh
Plug in a webcam & capture time lapse photos: fswebcam / uvccapture
then create a video: mencoder / ffmpeg
Record audio: arecord
What are some things to with linux? I hear people talk about changing repositories and installing programs and making their own. I'm currently using ubuntu 12.04. I have Linux in a Nutshell book to use as reference but I don't know what I can do with the shell that would beinteresting and at the same time would help me learn more about linux. ...
A question like that is almost impossible to answer because everyone's knowledge of the commandline is different.
Anyway, you can do use programs like ffmpeg/mplayer/mencoder/HandbrakeCLI to decode/encode videos and audios. You can make a dvd with animated thumbnails using tovid. You can use convert to edit images...etc
I could list more and more things you can do from the CLI but you get the idea. It boils down to this, the more knowledge you have of commandline programs and shell scripting the more you can do.
mostly , games play on windows , not so much on Linux, BSD , unix, and apple
about 1/2 of the programs i use do not have a GUI and are terminal only
or if they do have a gui the terminal in batch mode for some of the programs work better
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