Questions tagged [linux]
A family of Unix-like operating systems using the Linux kernel. If your question is about a certain distribution only, use a more specific tag.
58,802
questions
96
votes
4
answers
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How do I "identify with services" on IRC?
I am using irrsi as my irc cilent on ubuntu
I have entered "/join #android-dev" in my command window.
But I am getting this error message:
22:05 -!- #android-dev Cannot join channel (+r) - you need ...
96
votes
3
answers
66k
views
Does rm -rf follow symbolic links?
I have a directory like this:
$ ls -l
total 899166
drwxr-xr-x 12 me scicomp 324 Jan 24 13:47 data
-rw-r--r-- 1 me scicomp 84188 Jan 24 13:47 lod-thin-1.000000-0.010000-0.030000.rda
drwxr-...
95
votes
6
answers
357k
views
How to gzip multiple files into one gz file?
I have 100 files: cvd1.txt, cvd2.txt ... cvd100.txt
How to gzip 100 files into one .gz file, so that after I gunzip it, I should have cvd1.txt, cvd2.txt ... cvd100.txt separately?
95
votes
8
answers
140k
views
How to set default user for manually installed WSL distro?
I have cloned a WSL distro using wsl --export and wsl --import, but now, running wsl newdistro always logs me in as root. I understand that the lxrun command is deprecated and want to avoid it. The ...
95
votes
11
answers
30k
views
Cross-platform file system
I would like my external drives to be readable and writable from Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.
FAT32 works, but the 4 GB file size limit is a showstopper these days. Are there any alternatives?
95
votes
2
answers
154k
views
Rename user's group name
I just did usermod -l login-name old-name to change the username, but the group name is still the old one.
Any way of renaming the group name? I can't find any info to do so.
95
votes
7
answers
289k
views
How to transfer my SSH keys to another machine?
I have accounts on two machines: H1 and H2. I created ssh keys on H1 and installed it on S1. I can now ssh to S1 from H1. I want to do the same from H2. How do I install the ssh keys generated on H1 ...
95
votes
12
answers
600k
views
PuTTY Network Error: Software caused connection abort
I have a strange problem: When I'm using PuTTY with SSH connecting to a Linux server hosted in VMware on my local Windows 7, I often get the error saying "Network error: Software caused ...
94
votes
6
answers
137k
views
Vim Stuck In Insert Mode
I've been using Vim for several months now via my web host (they allow putty access). All of a sudden, the escape key has become unresponsive. I cannot exist insert or any other mode by simply hitting ...
94
votes
7
answers
178k
views
What's the easiest way to sniff TCP traffic data on Linux?
I want a simple way to show all the TCP data (not the TCP headers or anything else) going over any interface on my Linux box.
For instance, I want a magical command that if I do:
...
94
votes
4
answers
98k
views
Re-enter interactive mode after Ctrl-z
In interactive mode (in Octave, gnuplot, R, etc.) I occasionally press Control + z by mistake. This pauses the program and kicks me back to the terminal.
Is it possible to re-enter the original ...
94
votes
9
answers
490k
views
How can I change the input keyboard layout while in the console?
I need to change the layout of the keyboard while working in the console on Linux. I need to set up English layout as the default for the console. How can I do it?
93
votes
8
answers
164k
views
How to find uptime of a linux process
How do I find the uptime of a given linux process.
ps aux | grep gedit | grep -v grep
gives me a whole lot of information which includes the time at which the process was started.
I am specifically ...
93
votes
4
answers
177k
views
yum install gcc-g++ doesn't work anymore in CentOs 6.4
Today installed CentOs 6.4 fresh new on my workstation.
I wanted to install g++. With my surprise I didn't succeed by using
yum install gcc-g++
The thing is that even by doing a search I don't ...
93
votes
16
answers
93k
views
What is the Windows analog of the Linux watch command?
I'm looking for a Windows program/script/command line function that works like Linux's watch program.
watch periodically calls another program/whatever and shows the result, which is great for ...
93
votes
5
answers
61k
views
What's the difference between "adduser" and "useradd"?
I wonder: Why are there these two commands on Debian Linux, with very similar names and functionality? This has always been confusing for me.
Is any of them superior to another?
Why aren't they ...
93
votes
2
answers
263k
views
What do ALSA devices like "hw:0,0" mean? How do I figure out which to use?
I've searched over and over and can't find any explanation of what "hw:0,0" means. How do I determine the number of my USB audio card? MPD requires me to enter something like this:
audio_output {
...
92
votes
5
answers
186k
views
How to get list of dependencies of non-installed RPM package?
apt-cache show <package> shows also it's dependencies.
yum info <package> does not show dependencies, but it obviously know them.
How to ask yum for dependencies of specified package?
92
votes
11
answers
179k
views
How to auto detect text file encoding?
There are many plain text files which were encoded in variant charsets.
I want to convert them all to UTF-8, but before running iconv, I need to know its original encoding. Most browsers have an ...
92
votes
9
answers
289k
views
How to paste into nano from clipboard?
I have an Ubuntu server hosted by Vultr which I am interacting with remotely using their provided terminal. I would like to know how to paste from my clipboard into nano, which I am using to write the ...
92
votes
5
answers
127k
views
Permission denied when accessing VirtualBox shared folder when member of the vboxsf group
I'm running Ubuntu 11.04 (guest) on Windows 7 (host) with the guest additions installed. I have an auto-mount folder that maps to my D: drive on the host which I can access using sudo ls /media/...
92
votes
6
answers
21k
views
How to disable Ctrl+Q shortcut in Firefox on Linux
Since Firefox 57 there is no way to disable Ctrl+Q shortcut by plugin on Linux (see this bug). All workarounds I've found are based on setting the global Ctrl+Q shortcut to "steal" it from Firefox. ...
92
votes
13
answers
55k
views
What's a good solution for file-tagging in linux? [closed]
I've been looking for a way to tag my files and search/filter them based on those tags.
Here are my (updated) requirements :
any file readable by the user can be tagged freely
a user can search for ...
91
votes
5
answers
192k
views
How do I get the size of a Linux or Mac OS X directory from the command-line? [duplicate]
What command do I use to find the size of all the files (recursively) in a Linux or Mac OS X directory?
91
votes
4
answers
157k
views
How to make new file permission inherit from the parent directory?
I have a directory called data. Then I am running a script under the user id 'robot'. robot writes to the data directory and update files inside. The idea is data is open for both me and robot to ...
90
votes
3
answers
91k
views
Ensuring new files in a directory belong to the group
I want to create a shared directory when a number of users (all belong to say mygroup) can create and edit files. I would like all files in this directory and subdirectory to belong to mygroup
I have ...
90
votes
2
answers
344k
views
Creating ext4 partition from console
I have a volume /dev/sda1 (1.2 TB) containing an NTFS partition using 0.6 TB space.
I want to make an ext4 partition in the remaining 0.6 TB space.
I have not tried anything yet because I don't want ...
90
votes
4
answers
38k
views
bash watch command with colors preserved
From man watch:
Non-printing characters are stripped
from program output. Use "cat -v" as
part of the command pipeline if you
want to see them.
So how do I use cat -v if I want to see the ...
90
votes
2
answers
19k
views
Why is the most powerful user on a Unix/Linux system called “root?”
Somewhat inspired by this other question on the use of the term “Super User”, why the heck is the most powerful user on a Unix/Linux system called root? Why not admin, sysop, base, king or something ...
89
votes
4
answers
209k
views
Updating Time : ntpdate[3108]: the NTP socket is in use, exiting
The time on my system is incorrect for some reason.
i need to run an update but i can't seem to be able to
this is the errror.
ntpdate pool.ntp.org
31 Aug 12:31:59 ntpdate[3108]: the NTP socket is in ...
89
votes
7
answers
152k
views
terminal tool (linux) for repair corrupted zip files
I've a corrupt zip file. I've tried to repair it with
zip -F file.zip
and
zip -FF file.zip
but was not successful. Is there another terminal tool under Linux for repairing?
89
votes
4
answers
165k
views
systemd - Giving my service multiple arguments
Is it possible to give my systemd service more than one argument?
I'd like to execute a program with multiple arguments which have to be decided by the final user.
E.g: ./program arg1 arg2
To ...
88
votes
4
answers
174k
views
What are "build-essential" & "build-dep"?
I am researching how to install Ruby 1.9.1 in Xubuntu 10.04 and I came across the command build-essential and build-dep multiple times. Sometimes it is followed by packages and sometimes it is both ...
87
votes
8
answers
94k
views
Display all output but highlight search matches
In bash, if I want to execute a command and only display output lines that matches a certain pattern, I can pipe it to grep, like
file testfile
hello
there
my
friends
command
$ cat testfile | grep '...
87
votes
7
answers
84k
views
Linux: Continuously synchronize files, one way
Scenario: An IDE is set up on a Linux desktop box, editing PHP files locally. Every time I save a file, I want this change to appear on the linux server where Apache is running. The server has ssh (...
87
votes
5
answers
152k
views
Clean up my gnupg keyring?
My gnupg keyring contains hundreds of unnecessary entries. How would I remove the expired, revoked and unsigned keys from it?
I would like to keep the keys that have signed my key, and import new ...
86
votes
10
answers
78k
views
How can I open a file read-only from command line with emacs/vi/vim
Is there a way to tell emacs/vi/vim (from the command line) that I want to view the file in view-mode or read-only.
I know how to open a file as read only if emacs/vi/vim is already running.
86
votes
5
answers
222k
views
Linux on UEFI - how to reboot to the UEFI setup screen like Windows 8 can?
makeuseof.com explains that Windows 8 certified hardware has a new way to enter the UEFI setup screen (equivalent to BIOS). From How To Access The BIOS On A Windows 8 Computer:
No longer do we ...
86
votes
5
answers
122k
views
How to copy a file without using scp inside an ssh session?
I have logged on to a system with ssh and there is no scp present on both the systems. How to copy a file without using the scp program.
86
votes
4
answers
170k
views
Does the root account always have UID/GID 0?
On all the Linux systems I've managed, the root account has a GID and UID of 0. Is this guaranteed, or is it possible that the system will give root a different ID?
85
votes
7
answers
286k
views
How to remove all files starting with a certain string in Linux
I need to find all files starting with the name NAME in a directory tree and remove all these files using one shell command.
85
votes
7
answers
155k
views
Uploading files to S3 account from Linux command line
I've got several large files sitting in my Linux hosted account that I need to upload to my S3 account. I don't want to download them first and then upload them into S3.
Is there any way I can "...
85
votes
11
answers
98k
views
When to use Bash and when to use Perl/Python/Ruby? [closed]
We are doing all our scripting with Bash so far, but I'm starting to feel a bit silly about it. While we can of course do everything we want with Bash (it's quite powerful), I'm starting to wonder if ...
85
votes
8
answers
97k
views
How do I convert a DjVu document to PDF in Linux using only command line tools?
I've got some documents in DjVu which I'll like convert to PDF. Is there a way to do this using command line OSS tools?
85
votes
17
answers
103k
views
Untar, ungz, gz, tar - how do you remember all the useful options?
I am pretty sure I am not the only one with the following problem: every time I need to uncompress a file in *nix I can't remember all the switches, and end up googling it, which is surprizing ...
85
votes
4
answers
119k
views
Why is the CPU usage reported by top in Linux over 100%?
I've seen the CPU usage go over 100%. How is this possible? Is it because I have four CPU cores, so 100% isn't really the max?
Also, when a program does this, what else can I do in top besides using ...
85
votes
8
answers
97k
views
Clear terminal using keyboard shortcut
I was curious if there is a way to clear the terminal buffer/output through some keyboard shortcut. I am using Ubuntu. I am aware that
Ctrl + L
clears the terminal, but you can still scroll back to ...
85
votes
3
answers
7k
views
VIMRC, SCREENRC, BASHRC, KSHRC, etc. What does the "RC" mean?
In these and other applications what does the "RC" stand for?
85
votes
2
answers
188k
views
How do I get Java support on Google Chrome in Linux?
Is there a way to run Linux Google Chrome with Java support?
84
votes
13
answers
195k
views
How to make WSL run services at startup
After searching this site and various Q, it is clear that services and systemd is not available for WSL. I need to run a program in WSL every time I start my PC so I read this page on how to use ...