Questions tagged [unix]
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs.
3,992
questions
1741
votes
10
answers
1.6m
views
How can I sort the output of 'ls' by last modified date?
How can I sort the output of ls by last modified date?
nearly_lunchtime
668
votes
18
answers
762k
views
How to copy with cp to include hidden files and hidden directories and their contents?
How can I make cp -r copy absolutely all of the files and directories in a directory
Requirements:
Include hidden files and hidden directories.
Be one single command with an flag to include the ...
- 15.7k
644
votes
41
answers
560k
views
How to execute a command whenever a file changes?
I want a quick and simple way to execute a command whenever a file changes. I want something very simple, something I will leave running on a terminal and close it whenever I'm finished working with ...
- 13.3k
579
votes
7
answers
773k
views
What is the "You have new mail" message in Linux/UNIX?
Sometimes, when I log into a box and 'su' to root, I get a cute little message saying I have mail (thank GOD it's not AOL).
Where is this mail?
What does it contain?
Who/What sent it?
How important ...
- 16.7k
431
votes
9
answers
898k
views
How to get the summarized sizes of directories and their subdirectories?
Let's say I want to get the size of each directory of a Linux file system. When I use ls -la I don't really get the summarized size of the folders.
If I use df I get the size of each mounted file ...
- 4,503
413
votes
3
answers
1.0m
views
What is the Windows equivalent of the Unix command cat?
I want to do exactly what unix "cat" does, but on my PC. Is there a simple equivalent command for the Windows command line?
Specifically I want to create a file from all the files of a given type in ...
- 7,391
401
votes
7
answers
1.0m
views
How can I make chown work recursively?
I've got a directory called pdfs that contains a bunch of sub- and sub-sub-directories. I want to change ownership on all PDF files in all of the subfolders. I just tried this:
chown -R someuser:...
- 26.8k
396
votes
13
answers
288k
views
How can I search the bash history and rerun a command?
Can I search history in bash and run the result?
- 12.6k
389
votes
7
answers
149k
views
less command with multiple files: How to navigate to next/previous
I just found out I can use less with multiple files. less status line tells me
(END) - Next: file2.txt
But how do I navigate previous/next from less?
- 7,180
358
votes
11
answers
779k
views
If I know the PID number of a process, how can I get its name?
If I have the PID number for a process (on a UNIX machine), how can I find out the name of its associated process?
What do I have to do?
- 7,201
327
votes
5
answers
375k
views
How can I find files that are bigger/smaller than x bytes?
In a terminal, how can I find files that are bigger or smaller than x bytes?
I suppose I can do something like
find . -exec ls -l {} \;
and then pipe the result to awk to filter by file size. But ...
- 4,557
276
votes
20
answers
341k
views
Unix/Linux find and sort by date modified
How can I do a simple find which would order the results by most recently modified?
Here is the current find I am using (I am doing a shell escape in PHP, so that is the reasoning for the variables):
...
Richard Easton
269
votes
7
answers
276k
views
When should I use /dev/shm/ and when should I use /tmp/?
When should I use /dev/shm/ and when should I use /tmp/? Can I always rely on them both being there on UNIX?
- 5,208
265
votes
6
answers
130k
views
Choosing between .bashrc, .profile, .bash_profile, etc [duplicate]
This is embarrassing, but after many years of using POSIX systems full time, I still have a hard time figuring out if a shell customization should go in .bashrc, .profile, or somewhere else. Not to ...
- 2,840
258
votes
5
answers
386k
views
How to find files with certain text in the Terminal
I'd like to find all files that contain a certain string of text. How would you do that in the Terminal?
- 40k