sane

[John L Vifian]

On Wednesday 12 August 2009 9:40:40 pm Steven Vollom wrote:

...
> I just read the Description.  I have only used the command line entry (l)
> when instructed specifically to do so by someone helping me, and have done
> so only to provide the info they require to help me.  It still confuses me.

It confuses you because you don't take the time to learn what the various 
commands you are using do and how they work.

In this case less is a program that lets you view a text file one screenful at 
a time, and to page forwards and backwards through it, and a whole lot more.  
In this case less is more than you need.

>  In the 'Description' portion of "info less", I then get confused when it
> refers to 'vi'.  Never heard of that command.  It also begins the pattern
> that causes me difficulty to learn.  I am now leaving the focus of my task
> with a new term to have to understand to continue.

OK I should have looked at the info page first on which the useful  reference 
is to the "more" command.  vi is relevant because both vi and less use the 
same command structure, so that if you know vi (or vim) less will be easier to 
use.  However you don't need to know vi to use less.

I agree the amount of info here is hard to digest.

There are several important things.  The first is that running less is 
harmless.  If you make a mistake in what you type or the people advising you 
do it won't hurt anything on your computer.  If you were running something 
that changed something on your machine then you probably ought to be more 
careful.  For instance if you are adding a repository via the command line you 
really ought to make a backup  of the current sources.list, so when you make 
an error you can recover what you previously had.

The second is that at its simplest using less consists of the command 'less 
<filename>'  There are a whole bunch of options you can add.  In you case 
running 'less -N /etc/apt/sources.list' might have proven useful since it 
shows line numbers.

Regardless when you ran it you got the message "... No such file or directory",  
You know what less does, it shows you the contents of a file, if it is telling 
you that there is No such file or directory it is because the file doesn't exist 
where you are telling it to look for it, so you either misspelled the file name 
or you are telling less to look in the wrong place.  As it turned out you made 
both mistakes.  

When you start konsole or another shell, the commands are run from your home 
directory.  (Note the shell window on Dolphin runs from the current dolphin 
directory).  The default prompt shows what directory you are in.  The prompt: 
steven at Yeshua:~$ shows that you are in your home directory, which is probably 
/home/steven  (and not /home/Yeshua as I had previously stated).  Thus to show 
the file sources.list which is in the /etc/apt directory you either need to 
tell less the full path and file name of the file or run less from the directory 
containing the file.  So the right command was either:

steven at Yeshua:~$ less /etc/apt/sources.list

or

steven at Yeshua:~$ cd /etc/apt
steven at Yeshua:/etc/apt$  less sources.list

Note these show the prompt which isn't part of the command.

> I realize this is pretty common for you who are experienced, however,
> before you have experience, it is difficult enough to read an explanation
> of your main focus.  When given a reference that refers to a new
> application (vi) and doesn't even explain the 'vi??' (it refers to 'vim a
> different application)you were directed to review, it starts a pattern of
> search that puts someone like me in total confusion.

Actually the info file tells you that vi is a text editor, so now you know what 
vi is.  Vim is an i*M*proved version of vi. Neither are GUI based and are a 
bit difficult to learn.  AFAIK the vi in Kubuntu is actually vim but that really 
doesn't affect you much because you aren't using them, and hopefully won't have 
to.

You might want to try a non-gui editor so that  sometime when your system is 
really messed up and you can only boot into a terminal you can edit the 
appropriate file and fix your machine.  You might try pico which is a bit easier 
to learn.

... big snip ...

> Please reply, John.  It would be so helpful to me.  Believe it or not,
> there are certain aspects of the art field where I am considered the Guru. 
> It doesn't pad my ego, it just goes to show that right-brain thinkers
> sometimes have intellectual gifts as well.  I suspect it would take a long
> time for me to explain this area to a computer Guru, because not even all
> the right-brain thinkers understand this area of my gift.  But they all
> acknowledge that it is a special gift.  And for me it is just easy - the
> way I normally think, and not special at all.
>
> Not intended to elevate your opinion of me, just trying to get you to
> understand that I might not be a total zero for intelligence, just more
> like a person learning a new language.

Look, I'm dyslexic and understand not being able to think, or perform in 
certain ways.  I'm certainly no computer guru, or at least there are really 
big areas in which I don't know (and don't care to know) much about computers.  
I really don't mind helping you -- I usually learn something in the process.  
What is frustrating is that that you seem incurious as to what it is you are 
doing.  When someone gives you a command line snippet to run, you should be 
trying to understand what  and how the command line snippet works and what it 
does.  You should know when the command line will make changes to your system, 
and to what part of your system.  You should know what part of your system to 
backup before running the command line.  If you don't know ask.  

John Vifian


-- 
Exuberance is better than taste.
Gustave Flaubert