HELP NEEDED!!!!

[SNL888]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

cheers for the help with the CLI... i always back this up anyway to use to win dozzee to leave anything about :P

i managed to fix the black background by reinstalling it

sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

seemed to work...

like greygeeks says... google

i am now gona have a little bit more of a play about and see if i can break anything else...

oh another thing.... BUGS.... i want to be able to report that i am getting them and provide good documentation... how do i go about doing this...

also since updating my system .20 things are running a little slower.... anyway i can sort this out?

also (how many time now lol) i want to get rid of the older version of linux- eg. .14 and .19 version from my GRUB - how do i do this...

im gona hit google in the meantime but if you know of the top off your head that would be appreciated

CHEERS MATE (how S*** needs to check the football score )

[Telengard]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

cp file file.old

This is the simplest possible invocation of the cp command. It will work, but sometimes you may want to avoid unintended consequences of using the default behavior. It is very easy to customize cp to operate in a manner which may be much more to your liking by using some options.

The unadorned cp doesn't tell you what is happening, unless the operation fails for some reason. This behavior can be changed by adding the -v option. The -v option means verbose, and causes cp to display the source file name and target file name during processing.

$ cp -v raven.txt raven.txt.backup
`raven.txt' -> `raven.txt.backup'

One potentially hazardous behavior of unadorned cp is that it will happily replace existing files if they have the same name as the target you specified. Unlike the GUI cp will over write the existing file with the contents of the source file you specified without any warning. IMHO this is not a desirable behavior in most cases, especially for people accustomed to the GUI. To make cp behave more intelligently you can pass it the -i option, which causes it to prompt you before over writing existing target files.

$ cp -i -v re_gg.txt raven.txt
cp: overwrite `raven.txt'? no
$ cp -i -v raven.txt raven.txt.backup
cp: overwrite `raven.txt.backup'? yes
`raven.txt' -> `raven.txt.backup

Of course cp has many more options, and you'll have to consult the documentation to learn what they all do and why.

$ info coreutils 'cp invocation'
$ man cp

When you are done reading the info documentation or the man page just press the Q key on your keyboard to exit back to the command prompt. You can also view these documents from withing KDE Help Center. Read How to find Kubuntu's documentation for more details.

For quick reference on options of the cp command, try cp --help.

$ cp --help
Usage: cp [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST
 or: cp [OPTION]... SOURCE... DIRECTORY
 or: cp [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY SOURCE...
Copy SOURCE to DEST, or multiple SOURCE(s) to DIRECTORY.
. . .
 -i, --interactive      prompt before overwrite
. . .
 -v, --verbose        explain what is being done
. . .

I have edited the output of the cp --help command above for the sake of keeping this post short and concise. You will have to try it yourself to read the full output.

HTH

[GreyGeek]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

Most used konsole command explained.
vdir
First, open a konsole and enter
man vdir
It lists everything you've always wanted to know about vdir but were afraid to ask.
While ls is nice, I like vdir because it lists files and directories in columns, along with size, timestamp, permissions, etc.


I use locate because it is lightening fast, and because I can enter a partial word and locate will still find it. To find executables enter "bin/firstpartofname". But, to be sure locate can locate newly added material is the purpose of the updatedb command, which, unlike locate, should always be run with sudo.

Who and w are two variations of the same theme: finding out who is logged onto your system. Valuable for Linux boxes connected to a network, they are also valuable when you suspect you are being hacked. Currently, I am the only one logged into my notebook. Here is what those two command show:

jerry@vgnfw140e:~$ who
jerry :0 2010-03-06 09:58
jerry pts/0 2010-03-06 09:58 (:0)
jerry@vgnfw140e:~$ w
11:20:13 up 1:22, 2 users, load average: 0.05, 0.01, 0.00
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
jerry :0 - 09:58 ?xdm? 4:50 0.04s /bin/sh /usr/bin/x-session-manager
jerry pts/0 :0 09:58 1:21m 0.00s 0.02s /usr/bin/kwrited
jerry@vgnfw140e:~$

They give much more information than the sparse "whoami", but sometimes whoami is all you need. I opened a konsole to do those command. Then I opened another konsole, issued "sudo su" and here are the results of who and w in that root console:

jerry@vgnfw140e:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for jerry:
root@vgnfw140e:/home/jerry# w
11:23:30 up 1:25, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.02, 0.00
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
jerry :0 - 09:58 ?xdm? 5:04 0.04s /bin/sh /usr/bin/x-session-manager
jerry pts/0 :0 09:58 1:24m 0.00s 0.02s /usr/bin/kwrited
root@vgnfw140e:/home/jerry# who
jerry :0 2010-03-06 09:58
jerry pts/0 2010-03-06 09:58 (:0)
root@vgnfw140e:/home/jerry# whoami
root
root@vgnfw140e:/home/jerry#

If YOU know you didn't open a root console but you see root being listed then there is a good chance someone is browsing your system remotely. In eleven years of using Linux I've never encountered this or head of anyone who has, but there it is. You can determine their connection by running another konsole command:

netstat -lp

The "-l" lists all existing connections, the foreign IP address, and the program making the connection. The "-p" part lists all programs which are LISTENING to sockets and the sockets they are listening to.


I frequently get email from political activists and they usually have a link to their website. I recently got one from Brad Stephens, from "American for Prosperity". I opened a konsole and issued

whois americansforprosperity.org

which led me on a trail which ended up at SMARTtech CORP, an NRC funded Republican Internet network whose financial backers are CEOs, board members, etc. of health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations. The TEA party and other "conservative grassroots" web site registrants end up at the same place, and they all seem to headquarter out of a building occupied mostly by lobbyists in Washington, DC, at 1726 M Street, NW.

The cat command is used like the DOS "type" command. I should have included the Linux echo command, which can be used, with ">" to modify the contents of /proc/... settings and what not. Be careful of doing that, however, unless you are truly a Linux guru. Your friend here is "man somecommand".

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

vdir

Interesting, but it doesn't do anything more than what ls -l does.

vdir = ls -l
vdir -a = ls -la
vdir --color=auto = ls --color=auto -l

Take a look at the man pages for both, vdir and ls. The are almost, if not exactly, the same.

[GreyGeek]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

True, except that I can type vdir faster than ls -l and without looking for the "-" key.

[Telengard]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

True, except that I can type vdir faster than ls -l and without looking for the "-" key.

I have the same problem. My pinkie finger gets lost between `+' and `-' all the time. It gets worse as I get older.

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!



man alias

alias lsl='ls -l'
alias lsla='ls -la'
alias ....

[Telengard]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

alias lsla='ls -la'

$ alias
alias ls='ls --color=auto'

I don't think that is my customization, so it is probably the default on all Kubuntu installations. You can check and see for yourself whether your own is like that.

The implication is that you can alias an existing command to the same name with options added. In GG's case, he might do something like:

alias ls='ls -la'

If you want the effect to be permanent, then simply add the command at the bottom of ~/.bashrc

[oshunluvr]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

my 2 cents = "alias ll = ls -l"

didn't even know vdir!!!

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

If you want the effect to be permanent, then simply add the command at the bottom of ~/.bashrc

Better to create a ~/.bash_aliases file and put all your aliases there. One then just has to, in the ~/.bashrc file, ensure the following section (lines in red) are not commented:

# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

[Telengard]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

Better to create a ~/.bash_aliases file and put all your aliases there.

Why is that better?

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

While .bashrc is in the users /home directory, it is sort of a 'global' configuration file, even though it is in the users /home directory and owned by the user. IIRC, .bashrc can be overwritten if an update to bash comes along, but the .bash_aliases file is strictly a user file - it doesn't exist in the bash application - that has to be created by the user.

[Telengard]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

IIRC, .bashrc can be overwritten if an update to bash comes along,

I don't know why a system update would delete my .bashrc, but it is a good enough reason to source an external file.

[Snowhog]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

I'm probably wrong on my statement of the .bashrc file, but I find (and it is even suggested in the .bashrc file) that aliases be put into the .bash_aliases file.

[GreyGeek]

Re: HELP NEEDED!!!!

I doubt that you are wrong but, regardless, having "bash_alias" is better because it makes for a better organization. It's sort of like programming. You can put all your code in one GIGANTIC main.cpp file, or you can organize many cpp files by their functions. I've used both methods, the former as a your, inexperienced programmer, and the later after realizing that, like directory trees, source file trees are equally useful.