The command line tolls for thee.

This week's command line lessons reminded me a lot of math - and why I'm not good at that, either. It seemed easy at first, and even a little fun. A few lessons later (especially by the IO Redirection tutorial) I was getting lost in a sea of commands and arguments. So let's take a quick look at what worked, and what didn't.

Logging into the VNC was problematic at first because, although I had installed in correctly, I was unaware that I needed to first log in to vpn.arizona.edu before connecting to the VNC. Fortunately, the discussion board included a thread discussing this, after which I was able to quickly and reliably log in.

I first viewed Arthur Griffith's lessons, and was surprised to find that many of the commands didn't work on the VNC home directory files. For instance, the ls command lists several directories (downloads, music, pictures, etc.), but going further (for example, ls pictures) always seemed to return a message stating the file or directory didn't exist. I found this surprising, and frustrating. Nonetheless, basic commands (cd, ls, rm, mkdir, etc.) were clear, easy, and represented the high-water mark of my understanding for this week. Adding and changing directories, listing files, removing files - all of these tasks I remembered quickly and required little practice.

My outlook remained bright through the first few linuxcommand.org lessons as well. As stated above, however, things changed when I got to the IO Redirection lesson and after. I'm sure we've all had moments in life when you see or read something new and difficult, and then sit back and ask yourself, "What did I just read?" because it's a blur and you can't remember anything. Well, this was one of those moments. From that section on, I was lost. Following are some of the highlights (or lowlights) of these sections.

To begin, the pwd command seemed to return the same information (which directory you're in) as already appears before the $ symbol. Is this correct? Also, I know cp and mv mean copy and move respectively, however, they seem similar enough to remain confusing. I understand the concept of wildcats, but the range of symbols and functions involved in utilizing them remains baffling and will require additional practice to use correctly. Additionally, I'm having difficulty comprehending the ideas of standard output/input, and got caught in a loop of >'s when I experimented with them. Needless to say, I'm still not sure what these do - let alone how to explain them. Finally, I got the pipe command "ls -1 less" to work, but all it did was return the list of directory files in alphabetical order. Pipes are one more thing on my list that need additional work.

I mentioned in my discussion post that I can't imagine ever using CLI to perform routine computing functions, and that viewpoint remains unchanged. I practice interface monogamy, and am committed to my GUI. However, I also mentioned that certain commands, like ping, can only be performed through a CLI, and I do find some value in learning basic commands. This week was a great start, but I'm going to need considerable additional practice if we're going to be using CLI in earnest. My plan for tomorrow is to print out the linuxcommand.org lessons so I have them available for easy reference as we go forward.