[Solved] Re: Why update Swahili?

[William Case]

Hi gilpel;

On Thu, 2009-09-24 at 20:13 +0500, gilpel at altern.org wrote:
> > On Thu, 2009-09-24 at 06:14 +0500, gilpel at altern.org wrote:
> >> Well, in my book, rm is a bash command. It might not be exclusive to
> >> the bash shell, but it definitely is a bash command. Otherwise, maybe
> >> you could tell us what a bash command is to you?
> >
> > You are wrong. 'rm' (meaning /bin/rm) is an executable program. Shell
> > commands are builtin procedures such as 'cd', 'eval', etc. Unix Shells
> > have worked this way since the beginning.
> >
> > In Bash, if you want to know if a command is builtin, use 'type':
> >
> > $ type rm
> > rm is /bin/rm
> > $ type cd
> > cd is a shell builtin
> 
> Interesting. Now that I have a shell builtin, I won't have to scroll
> through all the bash man page to find the list. They're under... SHELL
> BUILTIN COMMANDS.
> 

A couple of tips from someone who was a newbie only a few years ago.

1) don't worry about the extra downloads.  You may need Bluetooth
someday and it doesn't take up much room.  Turn it off in startup
applications and it won't bother you again until, and if, you need it.
There are not many updates.  As for the language updates, it is a
loosing battle; too many programs look for the dictionaries or have
their own, like Firefox.  

Similarly, they really don't take up much room. They are stored on your
harddisk until they are called for.  Then they are put into memory.  If
you never use them, they will never be called.  If it takes a bit of
time on your internet connection, download them over night or have
another coffee.  It is not worth the battle; as far as I know every
operating system is multilingual and acts as if, if the dictionaries are
missing, part of its brain is missing.

2) This is a tip I learned the hard way, but once I learnt it, it has
stood me in good stead.  To operate a bit more efficiently and
effectively, take 4 hours, 2 hours for each program, and learn how to
use vim(vi) and emacs.

Vim and Emacs are text editors, and great debates rage about which one
is the better.  Try them both and you decide.  However, here is the real
reason why you should spend the time.  The commands for these two text
editors form the basis of most Linux/Unix applications.  You can
eliminate a great deal of frustration by recognizing:

'info' commands are similar to emacs commands
'man' commands are similar to vim commands
'less' & 'more' commands are similar to vim commands
'readline' commands are similar to emacs commands 
etc., etc.


Pay particular attention to: help, search, modes, command lines, index,
quitting and moving around a page in both.  Don't spend anymore time
than just learning those basic commands.  

These text editors are not really for writing text as you and I mean the
term.  They are large programs used primarily for programming.  Some
programmers live in vim or emacs all day and have added more and more
capablities; don't get bogged down in those parts of the applications --
just get to recognize the basics.

Some of the shell programs listed above will have a few differing
commands from vim or emacs but a quick check of help in each shell
application will point out the difference.  You will quickly learn to
recognize which applications are based on vim and which ones on emacs.
Soon you will be able to find things and bounce around in different
files like a pro.  It is well worth the few hours practise to get the
basics of vim and emacs.


The purists and the pros might be tempted to throw in a whole bunch or
corrections and caveats to this post.  For this one time only, I'll say
ignore them; most of them forget what it was like being a beginner.

For what it is worth, one extra tip about finding how or why things
work.  Once you have mastered getting around inside Linux, you can
easily use man or info, or --help or ]$ help {bash command}, and yelp
(if you use Gnome).  For someone new, the hardest part is often just
getting the correct terminology in order to ask the right Google or
Wikipedia question.  Man etc. will sometimes appear incomprehensible but
they will provide the terms, jargon or acronyms that you can use to do a
more extensive and meaningful search online.  

Don't get frustrated with the people on the list, they are really trying
to help.  They have helped me a lot!

-- 
Regards Bill
Fedora 11, Gnome 2.26.3
Evo.2.26.3, Emacs 23.1.1