UNIX provides hundreds, if not thousands, of commands with which you can manipulate a large variety of resources available in the kernel and user space. Martin Streicher, Editor-in-Chief, Linux Magazine, looks at three essential UNIX utilities that deliver the entire Internet to your command line.
I’d recommend it though it kind of makes you wonder who this UNIX is that’s providing all these neat things but that can be overlooked.
A mention of ssh-agent/ssh-add would have rounded that out nicely.
I am primarily a Windows guy, but I have done some experimenting with Linux as well. I liked the CLI utils in Linux so much that I took Cygwin and Perl back with me.
“I am primarily a Windows guy, but I have done some experimenting with Linux as well. I liked the CLI utils in Linux so much that I took Cygwin and Perl back with me”
You can have the real thing for free
I find it amazing that so many users actively avoid using a shell and complain whenever they have to use one.
Somewhere along the line someone told them that it’s scary and complex and so they miss out on a very powerful way to interact with their computer.
yeah same here man, unix commands are the most powerful thing ever, you can’t do many things in gui like you can with cli, gui is just nice if you are going to watch movies or design web sites using xhtml/css etc, but for everything else i prefer cli
Edited 2006-09-07 02:06
> I find it amazing that so many users actively avoid
> using a shell and complain whenever they have to use
> one. Somewhere along the line someone told them that
> it’s scary and complex and so they miss out on a very
> powerful way to interact with their computer.
The shell *is* complex, because that’s a necessary tradeoff to achieve the power it has. It could be much, much simpler, but then you could do only basic tasks with it. (I don’t provide evidence here because I hope it is obvious)
The one thing you probably don’t understand is that most users *want* simplicity, not power.
Somewhere along the line someone told them that it’s scary and complex and so they miss out on a very powerful way to interact with their computer.
Plutonium is also powerful. And, yet, I don’t want to handle it.
Every time I go to the CLI I feel like I’m handling radioactive waste with an oven mitt. The simple act of transposing 2 letters when assigning permissions, for instance, can have a profound impact.
I’ll take a well designed ticky box with simple, clear, options any day.
Can this user install software? []
Does this user need a simplified desktop? []
Does this user need restricted access to programs? []
(click next to programs user is permitted to use)
I want the same simplicity when I set up a firewall.
Allow remote access to this machine? []
Allow FTP access? []
Allow SSH? []
Allow this machine’s contents to be viewed by others on the network? [].
Straightforward. Clear. To the point. Not abstract like a string of WRXs. Impossible to bork up by transposing letters or forgetting to add/omit a space, or by adding/omitting a minus sign.
Services For Unix is free too. Its a download for XP. Its built into Windows 2003 Server R2.
Why not use the *nix tools on the OS on 97% of desktops?
Of course you can download webpages using vbs too:
sData = GetXML(“http://www.yahoo.com“)
‘ write it to a file
sFile = “C:Tempyahoo.htm”
WriteFile sFile, sData
Function GetXML(sURL)
‘ Create an xmlhttp object:
Dim oXML
Set oXML = CreateObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”)
oXML.open “GET”,sURL
oXML.send
Do:wscript.sleep 10:Loop While oXml.ReadyState<>4
GetXML = oXML.responseText
End Function
Sub WriteFile(FilePath, sData)
‘Given the path to a file, will write sData to it
With CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)._
OpenTextFile(FilePath, 2, True)
.Write sData: .Close
End With
End Sub
I think Microsoft’s Services for Unix is freeware but not open source, and last time I checked it didn’t support the X Window System. Otherwise it is pretty good.
For a better than Cygwin experience check out UWIN instead. It is a port of the Unix tools from AT&T itself, done by David Korn (of ksh fame), under the CPL, no dual GPL/Commercial BS like Cygwin!
http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/
It is also more standards compliant, as it uses Unix source code rather than GNU’s, has more complete implementations of Posix APIs, supports multiple C compilers and is both lighter and faster than Cygwin.
Its website sucks, though.
“Services For Unix is free too….. Its built into Windows 2003 Server R2.”
ws2k3r2 do NOT have SFU. Some stubs are there, like posix subsystem, nfs server/client etc, but there is no FS no standard unix tools no standard lib………. All standard unix stuffs need to be downloaded separately.
Now THAT was easy, wasn´t it?!?! 😛
This is a very good tutorial. Clear and concise which is how a tutorial should be. I loved going through it.
C:> format internet:
Ops… I forgot to put the System files
C:> format internet: /S
I tend to operate from the command line A LOT, and not just xterms — I like fullscreen virtual terminals in Linux and fullscreen VIO sessions under OS/2.
My toolset is different, though, consisting of things like Midnight Commander (which can also do FTP), the shareware NFTP client (which also interfaces with wget in a point-and-shoot manner), Links, either mTelnet or zTelnet (depending on platform), slrn, and Pine.
Who says console apps can’t have mouse support and pull down menus? 🙂