A reader commented: “The good and bad is that it uses Linux and various languages that look fairly cryptic to me.”
Yes, there is a bit of learning curve with Linux, but if you liked the old DOS command world, Linux is learnable. That is what I like about the rPI, there seems to be lots of support for it and if 100's of Ks of them get out there, there will be lots of howtos and examples.
All LINUX versions (aka distributions or distro's) include at least a command line interface (like good old DOS) and some include a Graphical User Inerface or GUI - the rPI has both.
Most *nix commands are very short: ls, cat, cp, etc. because it started when an ASR-33 was the console of choice! Test - who are these guys:
http://icedfire.mine.nu/unixthings/unix_port.jpg
All Linux configuration stuff is done via flat text files. With a GUI, there are sometimes tools to change the config setting with buttons, etc., but you can do anything on Linux from the command line. When DEC started doing popular OS's for schools, etc like OS-8, TOPS-10, RSTS, etc. the commands were made more human readable like copy, type, etc. Then Bill Gates (who learned to program on TOPS-10) just copied the DEC commands 1:1 with DOS.
When you get the rPI up at the command prompt "$", here are some things to try.
This command will display a refreshing screen with all the running processes (ctrl+C
to get out)
$
top
This command will display commands "apropos" to what you want to do
$
apropos memory
This
will display free memory
$
free
If you
want more detail on any command (enter to go one line down, space to
go a page, q to quit)
$
man free
If you
want to edit a file
$
nano file.txt
If you
want to see the contents of a file
$
cat file.txt
cat is
short for Concatenate, the command can be use to Concatenate files,
but with one argument just Concatenates a single file to standard
output, which is the screen. Every command does a lot of things...
it's the UNIX way
Note how you can string Linux commands together, you can even feed output of one to the next. For example
$ ps -A | grep apache
The ps command will show all running processes with the -A switch The "|" pipes the output of the command to the grep pattern search, which searches the output for the pattern "apache" The result is that it will show you the process detail of all the web server processes A Process is just a program that is running in the background, with no I/O to a terminal.
$ sudo (any command)
gives the next command root privs, the "pi" user does not normally have the ability to accidentally or on purpose change system files. This is one of the things that makes Linux a lot more secure and safe than Windoze
Here is
a tutorial of more commands:
http://www.embeddedheaven.com/online-linux-tutorial.htm
Ignore
the part about "Starting an Xterminal session" in the
intro, when you
boot the rpi you are already at the command line.
I spent
MANY hours working with UNIX (and other) systems at the command
line, only it they used to cost $100's and filled a room. Now the rPI
costs $25 and is the size of the credit card. I am amazed!
Eric Pierce VA3EP - See the Disclaimer in the Introduction
© Eric Pierce
and "VA3EP Amateur Radio And Other Geek Pursuits", 1952-2099.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and
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