The Linux Command Line

505 Pages·2·8.719 MB·English

by  William Shotts

THE LINUX COMMAND LINE

T H E L I N U X
C O M M A N D L I N E
2 N D E D I T I O N
A Complete Introduction
by William Shotts
San Francisco
THE LINUX COMMAND LINE, 2ND EDITION. Copyright © 2019 by William Shotts.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-10: 1-59327-952-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-952-3
Publisher: William Pollock
Production Editors: Meg Sneeringer and Serena Yang
Cover Illustration: Octopod Studios
Developmental Editor: Chris Cleveland
Technical Reviewer: Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso
Copyeditor: Kim Wimpsett
Compositors: Britt Bogan and Meg Sneeringer
Proofreader: James Fraleigh
For information on distribution, translations, or bulk sales, please contact No Starch Press, Inc. directly:
No Starch Press, Inc.
245 8th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
phone: [phone]; [email protected]
www.nostarch.com
The Library of Congress issued the following Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the first edition:
Shotts, William E.
The Linux command line: a complete introduction / William E. Shotts, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-389-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59327-389-4 (pbk.)
1. Linux. 2. Scripting Languages (Computer science) 3. Operating systems (Computers) I. Title.
QA76.76.O63S5556 2011
005.4'32--dc23
2011029198
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product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Rather
than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only
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has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor No Starch Press, Inc. shall have any
liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or
indirectly by the information contained in it.
[S]
To Karen

About the Author
William Shotts has been a software professional for more than 30 years and
an avid Linux user for more than 20 years. He has an extensive background
in software development, including technical support, quality assurance,
and documentation. He is also the creator of LinuxCommand.org, a Linux
education and advocacy site featuring news, reviews, and extensive support
for using the Linux command line.
About the Technical Reviewer
Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso is a coder, mathematician, and hacker-errant. He
runs Debian GNU/Linux exclusively since 2002, both at home and at work.
Jordi has been involved with GNU Octave, a free numerical computing envi-
ronment largely compatible with Matlab, and with Mercurial, a distributed
version control system. He enjoys pure and applied mathematics, skating,
swimming, and knitting. Nowadays he thinks a lot about environmental
mapping, greenhouse gas emissions, and rhino conservation efforts.

BRIEF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
PART I: LEARNING THE SHELL
Chapter 1: What Is the Shell? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2: Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter 3: Exploring the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 4: Manipulating Files and Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 5: Working with Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 6: Redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Chapter 7: Seeing the World as the Shell Sees It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 8: Advanced Keyboard Tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 9: Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Chapter 10: Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
PART II: CONFIGURATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 11: The Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 12: A Gentle Introduction to vi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 13: Customizing the Prompt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
PART III: COMMON TASKS AND ESSENTIAL TOOLS
Chapter 14: Package Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Chapter 15: Storage Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Chapter 16: Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Chapter 17: Searching for Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Chapter 18: Archiving and Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209