All Questions
240,439
questions
1863
votes
3
answers
443k
views
Why does man print "gimme gimme gimme" at 00:30?
We've noticed that some of our automatic tests fail when they run at 00:30 but work fine the rest of the day. They fail with the message
gimme gimme gimme
in stderr, which wasn't expected. Why are we ...
- 9,822
1646
votes
16
answers
3.6m
views
How do I get the size of a directory on the command line?
I tried to obtain the size of a directory (containing directories and sub directories) by using the ls command with option l. It seems to work for files (ls -l file name), but if I try to get the size ...
- 27k
1609
votes
10
answers
527k
views
What is the exact difference between a 'terminal', a 'shell', a 'tty' and a 'console'?
I think these terms almost refer to the same thing, when used loosely:
terminal
shell
tty
console
What exactly does each of these terms refer to?
- 35.6k
1382
votes
12
answers
3.5m
views
How to correctly add a path to PATH?
I'm wondering where a new path has to be added to the PATH environment variable. I know this can be accomplished by editing .bashrc (for example), but it's not clear how to do this.
This way:
export ...
- 17.6k
1285
votes
13
answers
4.9m
views
How to copy files from one machine to another using ssh
I am using a Linux (CentOS) machine, and I have already connected to another system using SSH.
Now, my question is: How can I copy files from one system to another system?
Suppose, in my environment, ...
- 16.7k
1200
votes
9
answers
3.7m
views
How to install a deb file, by dpkg -i or by apt?
I have a deb package for installation.
Shall I install by dpkg -i my.deb, or by apt?
Will both handle the software dependency problem well?
If by apt, how can I install from the deb by apt?
- 103k
1019
votes
6
answers
1.9m
views
How to see full log from systemctl status service?
I check service status with systemctl status service-name.
By default, I see few rows only, so I add -n50 to see more.
Sometimes, I want to see full log, from start. It could have 1000s of rows.
Now,...
- 10.6k
965
votes
10
answers
1.8m
views
How can I replace a string in a file(s)?
Replacing strings in files based on certain search criteria is a very common task. How can I
replace string foo with bar in all files in the current directory?
do the same recursively for sub ...
- 245k
955
votes
3
answers
570k
views
How to unfreeze after accidentally pressing Ctrl-S in a terminal?
It's a situation that has happened quite often to me: after I press (with a different intention) Ctrl-S in a terminal, the interaction (input or output) with it is frozen. It's probably a kind of "...
900
votes
14
answers
1.1m
views
How can I reduce a video's size with ffmpeg?
How can I use ffmpeg to reduce the size of a video by lowering the quality (as minimally as possible, naturally, because I need it to run on a mobile device that doesn't have much available space)?
I ...
- 15.2k
900
votes
2
answers
2.2m
views
How do I make `ls` show file sizes in megabytes?
What commands do I need for Linux's ls to show the file size in MB?
- 9,113
862
votes
2
answers
179k
views
Why was '~' chosen to represent the home directory?
I have often wondered why the ~ (tilde) character represents the home directory of a user.
Is there a reason behind this, or is it just because tilde is an infrequently used character?
- 7,039
827
votes
4
answers
601k
views
How to cycle through reverse-i-search in BASH?
In the terminal, I can type Ctrl + R to search for a matching command previously typed in BASH. E.g., if I type Ctrl + R then grep, it lists my last grep command, and I can hit enter to use it. This ...
- 3,717
823
votes
5
answers
367k
views
What does "--" (double dash / double hyphen) mean?
I have seen -- used in the compgen command.
For example:
compgen -W "foo bar baz" -- b
What is the meaning of the -- in there?
- 30k
811
votes
40
answers
964k
views
Tracking down where disk space has gone on Linux?
When administering Linux systems I often find myself struggling to track down the culprit after a partition goes full. I normally use du / | sort -nr but on a large filesystem this takes a long time ...
Owen Fraser-Green