Les Mikesell wrote:
On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 9:07 AM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
I keep hearing this "arcane" - even the author of xkcd commented about not remembering tar flags... and yet, 80%-90% of them are trivially
obvious
to me - -r (or -R) for recursion, -f for file. For configuration, such as firewalls, there's always copy an existing line and edit, then do a syntax check.
The 'arcane' issue isn't so much per-process as it is knowing which program does what and how or if they interact in a way that affects your upper-level task. For example, I don't think it is very obvious what you have to do for common things like giving a dhcp address with an associated dns name to a specific device. Or maybe setting up a group of users with some special file system access, samba shares, web logins with group access for several different web apps, and an email
True - but that's getting into nontrivial tasks, if you're doing it for more than your own machine at home. There are security issues, and organization policies, etc.
group address. And as for tar flags, if you use it for backups, which one will make your restored system bootable?
grub-install? <g>
mark "but then, I also spent decades as a programmer"Then maybe it makes sense for you for each program needed above to not do much in the way of integrating with the others. From the perspective of a user it can seem complicated.
No. One of the reasons I really, *really* like all versions of *Nix is that most programs *can* work together, through switches and filters.
But then, as you progress from novice to craftsman, one of the chief things you need to do is learn what the tools are, and how to use them, and how to use them at *least* as intended.
mark