10 commands that beginners need to understand before using

[bw123]

It's just a matter of:
1) knowing the potential consequences of what you're doing
2) being careful that you actually know what directory you're in and what that command you just typed does before you press enter.

Yeah, I actually agree the Topic Title is not good. It should be "10 commands that beginners should not MISuse" but the whole tech world wants to keep people ignorant, don't they?

Just click the spinng advertisement and watch the pretty girl while we hypnotrize yer brains out... terminal is evil, terminal is black, terminal have no advertisemnet.

I was just saying there are at least two ways of looking at it. Practical experience is best up to a point, but academic learning is invaluable, because you can't be a self-taught expert at everything. Combining the two types of learning makes sense.

[Thorny]

..." but the whole tech world wants to keep people ignorant, don't they?

This is true today but it hasn't always been that way, at least with non-commercial GNU/Linux systems. When I started with GNU/Linux, experienced users wouldn't help you until you asked smart questions showing that you had learned enough to do that. That's where the whole idea of RTFM came from, "F" did not mean "Fine" and was the only answer you got until you had. Spoon feeding answers just didn't happen.

@Argus You sound like an intelligent person who approaches things sanely but surely you have read enough posts in various places to know the world is not totally populated with intelligent people.

[GarryRicketson]

Changed the title

by Argus » > GaryRicketson

YES! This is very true: GUI programs can be far more dangerous-----snip--

Gparted,... I have messed up drives and rendered them un bootable, with Gparted,.. of course the 'fdisk' command can do the same, ...any way ,
have to go, I just wanted to change the title now.

[bw123]

When I started with GNU/Linux, experienced users wouldn't help you until you asked smart questions showing that you had learned enough to do that. That's where the whole idea of RTFM came from,

I've been told to RTFD or RTFM many times, and never really considered it offensive. But at one time, I actually had actual paper printed documentation on just about every hardware or software I used.

My first compiler came in a box that weighs about 50 lbs, I think there are 15-20 nice manuals in there. Motherboards and other peripherals used to have pretty decent documentation. I think as more and more proprietary hardware/software is being produced, the documentation is getting just plain scarce. They gave up paper for a pdf on a CD, now all you get is a website.

Even on linux now, I notice most of /usr/share/doc is just changelogs. Many times documentation for browsers is only online now, and it is often very poor IMO. There is an overabundance of bad documentation and out-of-date documentation on the internet. So I sympathize in a way when people are confused, or get lazy about it.

[GarryRicketson]

But, also don't get me wrong, I do use some GUI programs, they are great
and can make some tasks much easier, faster. But to tell a beginner to not use the terminal, that is not good advise, it is important to learn how to use the command line, and the only way I know of to do that is start using it.
When I started using a PC, we did not have any GUI's, it was command line only,... logically the first things I started working on were to use batch files, and create menus , that had the various options I used the most, that was still limited, so I started learning about qbasic, and found I could make better menus, and they could have options to run various programs, etc,...
But any way, I guess that actually is another topic.
But a good example, of course I read , what the 'format' command does,..
so silly me, I make a batch file :
So using 'copy con' :

Code: Select all

$copy con testformat.bat

named it "testformat.bat"

Code: Select all

format c: / s
yes

Then, when I looked at the directory:

Code: Select all

$ dir ( equivlant to 'ls')
--various files and directories
testformat.bat 

So I typed in , at the prompt 'testformat' and hit enter,... it worked, much to my dismay, it was so fast I did not have a chance to abort, since I had included the
'yes' option (command),.... everything I had learned and done, gone in just a few seconds,... that was also the same time I learned, to make a back up first, before trying a experiment,...or at least just use a floppy in drive A: instead of the main drive,

[debiman]

many things considered dangerous for new users are in fact powerful and necessary tools that I use on a regular basis.

which?
like, ?

but yeah, this whole thread is just a bit of messing about...
and should not be mistaken to mean that commands not listed here are always safe...