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(TIP) Tip: mkdir, et al
tips to ease the move to Linux

by @admin, march 13, 2019, 12:09am utc

So, if you have just landed in Linux, coming from the GUI of the Mac or Windows, we wanted to gather some immediate tips here.

It's mkdir, not md for command line folder creation. (This one will take some time to change to if you have spent a lot of time in DOS/Command prompt :-)

| more in DOS to control the flow of moving through a text file is | less (!) in Linux. And type is cat.

So for example, where you would do c:\>type help.txt | more in DOS it would be $ cat help.txt | less in Linux.

| less is a lot more powerful as you can scroll back and forth within the text file you are viewing.

Most linux commands come with a small-to-large reference available by typing man in front of the command. "man" for manual. Therefore man cat will help you with other parameters available for "cat".

$ man cat

CAT(1) User Commands CAT(1)

NAME cat - concatenate files and print on the standard output

SYNOPSIS cat [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION Concatenate FILE(s) to standard output.

   With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

   -A, --show-all
          equivalent to -vET

   -b, --number-nonblank
          number nonempty output lines, overrides -n

   -e     equivalent to -vE

   -E, --show-ends
          display $ at end of each line

Manual page cat(1) line 1 (press h for help or q to quit)

		Tip
	mkdir	If you have been a command line person in the past, you'll know that md is the way to make a folder (directory) in the Windows command prompt (DOS). mkdir is the way to do it in Linux. mkdir brings with it options to make all folders in a given path, if needed. So, if you do Not have a /home/lavojo/files/places-to-keep/tips folder then entering `mkdir -r /home/lavojo/files/places-to-keep/tips` will create all of the folders necessary in one shot.
	/home	It is ~~generally~~ a ~good idea~ to separate out your data area from the system area, in Linux. Creating a separate partition for /home goes a long way towards accomplishing this. All of your own configuration files will be stored under /home and it makes it much easier to a. backup your data without clumping in the OS files each time and b. makes it easier to upgrade the OS.
	cmp	Much like fc on DOS, cmp is used to compare files on the command line.
	~~dir~~	use ls. ls -larth for the familiar DOS-type listing of files.

tags: Beginning users, Tips