So I recently picked up a Mintbox Mini as my "daily driver"...
July 14, 2017 12:55 PM Subscribe
Hey all,
I recently picked up a Mintbox Mini in part to cut the cord from Windows, and in part as a teaching tool for Linux. I use the OS daily at work, but not too extensively. We use Vi to edit input files, and have to get around using the command line to gather info for troubleshooting. But I'd like to pick up some educational experiments that will help make me as comfortable in Linux command line as I am in Windows GUI.
My first project was to spin up a LAMP stack and install WordPress on it. That went fairly well, with enough minor obstacles (mostly due to 5 year outdated instructions) that it was more than a cut and paste job. And I find myself looking for the next project.
Any cool/educational projects that my fellow MeFites could recommend?
My first project was to spin up a LAMP stack and install WordPress on it. That went fairly well, with enough minor obstacles (mostly due to 5 year outdated instructions) that it was more than a cut and paste job. And I find myself looking for the next project.
Any cool/educational projects that my fellow MeFites could recommend?
Best answer: Well, I've been using both Windows and Linux machines at home for about 10 years, and I have been keeping a document called "Assorted Linux facts that it took a while to figure out". I grant you this would not be a "cool/educational project" but you also asked how to be comfortable in the Linux command line, which this would address.
A sample of some topics from that document:
- how to set-up a file share for Windows to see using Samba
- how to convert a number of text, rtf, html, etc. files into a single united PDF
- how to set up rolling back-ups using cron, maintaining a minimum number AND minimum date range of backups
- how to deal with "pesky" files that came from Windows (which contain carriage returns, too wide lines, "curly" apostrophes and quotations marks, spaces and special characters in the file names, etc.)
- using incron to take actions when files are created within a directory
- how to define functions in your logon script so that they are available to perform common actions
Other ideas:
- become familiar enough with grep that you can easily scan a file for what you want to look at, instead of opening it in an editor (e.g., if you want to see the 5 lines before and after lines containing "file not found")
- dual boot a laptop so you have access to a shared data partition in both Windows and Linux
posted by forthright at 6:17 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
A sample of some topics from that document:
- how to set-up a file share for Windows to see using Samba
- how to convert a number of text, rtf, html, etc. files into a single united PDF
- how to set up rolling back-ups using cron, maintaining a minimum number AND minimum date range of backups
- how to deal with "pesky" files that came from Windows (which contain carriage returns, too wide lines, "curly" apostrophes and quotations marks, spaces and special characters in the file names, etc.)
- using incron to take actions when files are created within a directory
- how to define functions in your logon script so that they are available to perform common actions
Other ideas:
- become familiar enough with grep that you can easily scan a file for what you want to look at, instead of opening it in an editor (e.g., if you want to see the 5 lines before and after lines containing "file not found")
- dual boot a laptop so you have access to a shared data partition in both Windows and Linux
posted by forthright at 6:17 PM on July 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
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Might also write down a list of things you do in Windows, and do the same in Linux. (I might do that both from a command line, and also from a Linux GUI).
One possibly interesting project would be to do some of this new-fangled cloud computing stuff. It's largely command-line driven. Most of the big providers (AWS, google, IBM, Microsoft, HP) have free trials.
posted by at at 2:45 PM on July 14, 2017