![]() In 1969 an employee of AT&T Bell Labs named Ken Thompson wrote the first code of what was to become known as Unix (a pun on MULTICS, an earlier project Thompson had been working on). The awkwardness of this situation was soon realized and attempts were made to create an operating system which could run on more than one brand of machine. Each computer vendor sold his operating system along with his machines. The operating systems for these machines were written in assembler, machine code, thus highly efficient but also totally and utterly unportable. With the PDP-11 by DEC (now Compaq) introduced in 1970, a 'small' (thus called 'mini') and rather cheap computer appeared on the market and turned almost instantly into a big hit with universities, most of which were for the first time able to buy a computer (the PDP-11 was a real bargain at $10,000). The machines then referred to as 'computers' were bulky, room-sized brutes using tapes and magnetic memory (hence the term 'core' for system memory). In order to get some idea what a shell is, a little background knowledge might be useful.īack in the days when Unix was born, the now dominant breed of 'personal computers' was completely unknown. And you will be regarded as a computer wizard by most outsiders in a rather short period of time *grin*. Well, it's learning, so what do you expect? -) But believe me that it can be highly rewarding. That isn't to say it is easy learning your way around the shell. This is because in Unix the shell isn't just a simple command interpreter like the DOS prompt in Windows, but a fully fledged programming environment. And these blocks can do the most amazing things and what's more, you can make them cooperate, thus achieving highly complex tasks within a few lines. It's like the biggest collection of building blocks you've ever seen. Sure, it's easier at first glance and you get where you want eventually, but it's slow and takes the fun out of driving.Īnd that's it: the command line is fun. It is my conviction, however, that using Linux without the shell is like driving your car in first gear only. You can use the Mageia Control Center and Webmin to configure each and every aspect of your system. You can boot your system directly into X and shut it down from there. The truth is: you can use Linux without knowing anything about the shell. And that people and operating systems should get rid off it. 7.4.7 My terminal freezes everytime I press ""Įvery once in while you get to hear the litany that 'the command line' is 'out of date', 'arcane' and so on.7.4.6 What does "bash: command: bad interpreter" mean?.7.4.5 I've put a script 'foo' into my ~/bin directory, but every time I try to run it, a different command also called 'foo' is started.7.4.4 How do I change the file listing colors?.7.4.3 The execution bit is set, I have permissions to execute but permission is denied anyway. ![]()
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