Shell

If you’re frequently interacting with Linux via the Bash shell, you’ll eventually want to customize it a bit – perhaps adding your own shortcuts, or setting up the environment to your liking, or even just adding some decorative personalization. This is what the Bash profile is for. It’s stored in your home directory and can be edited to set things up just the way you want each time you log in. Editing your Bash Profile To edit your bash profile, open it with the nano text editor … Read more

The find command in the Linux shell allows you to search for files in the filesystem. It can find files by name, user permissions, and size. The find command can also perform actions on the files which are found. Find Command Syntax The syntax for the find command is as follows: find [OPTIONS] [PATH] [EXPRESSION] Where: [OPTIONS] are options from the below table to determine the find behavior [PATH] is the starting point for the search [EXPRESSION] defines the tests to find matching files and any action that should be taken … Read more

Bash and Zsh are two popular Linux shells. This guide explores their pros and cons to help you determine which is best to use. What is a Shell? A shell is the command-line user interface you use to interact with your computer. It provides the text input and output that allows you to provide instructions to and receive information from your computer system. The shell also encompasses other utilities, like scripting for task automation and ease-of-use tools like autocomplete to make navigating the filesystem faster. Bash and Zsh are both … Read more

Modern computers are incredibly reliable, but things can still go wrong – and the worst thing that can usually go wrong is losing your data – be it important work or your precious photos. Alongside a robust backup system, fsck (File System cheCK) is probably the most important tool you can have on hand to prevent data loss. This tutorial explains how to use fsck to repair file system errors in Linux and takes you through four common examples. fsck verifies the integrity and repairs errors … Read more

This tutorial explains how to create symlinks (symbolic links), also know as “Soft Links,” in Linux using the ln command. If you’re coming to Linux from a background using the Windows operating system, you’ll be familiar with the concept of shortcuts – files that don’t contain any real data and contain a link to the actual file or folder you wish to access. They may exist simply for your convenience (to save time clicking through nested folders) or to redirect the output (You have a … Read more

The rsync (remote synchronization) command is a file copy tool that can synchronize files across local storage disks as well as over a network. It’s prevalent because it’s very good. It is commonly used for backing up files, keeping file servers up-to-date with each other, and for deploying code and assets for web apps to servers. rsync can and will copy just about every file it can see and will synchronize based on file size and modification date to see what’s changed and what needs to be updated. … Read more

This article explores chmod 777, a Linux command used to give ALL RIGHTS to the user, group, and others. As a new Linux user, web developer, or system administrator, you have probably been instructed to type: chmod 777 /path/to/file/or/folder …into your Linux shell at some point. Whenever you’re running commands on your systems (especially as root!), you should ALWAYS know what they’re up to. So what’s chmod 777 really about? Permissions in Linux Above is an example of running the: ls -l command, which will list the current directory contents in … Read more