Why Different Commands ?

[Adriano Varoli Piazza]

2006/6/15, Vilas Sukhadeve <vilas_sukhadeve at dataone.in>:
> Dear Friends,
> I am used to Ubuntu 5.10 for almost an year and I despise using MS
> programmes. I am not any software man rather I am "computer
> illiterate".And whenever I faced any problem with operating any
> programme, all of you have helped me. This is very nice with, I will
> call our community. (I wanted to make our community bold but in
> Evolution these icons are not functioning, can anybody tell me how to
> activate them ?)

Evolution doesn't send html mail, I guess, and that means you can't
set text bold. Given that it's generally very bad form to send html
mail to a mailing list, it's good that you couldn't do it. If you want
to emphasize, you can add _ to _underline_ words, or use * to
*emphasize* words. Some mail clients will even interpret them that
way. But in general, try to express yourself with words and not with
pretty graphics.


> Here I would like to know why different commands have to be used in
> Terminal. e.g. sudo, apt-get, chmod, mkdir, #, I know only these
> commands so far. What these different commands stand for ?

Well, the reason that you need to use different commands in the
terminal is the same reason why you have to use different programs in
a graphical interface: a program that reads your mind and does what
you mean hasn't been invented yet. I'd like to just type "doit" on the
console and be done for the day, but sadly I can't.

Now, to what are the commands listed:
sudo: "do as superuser", allows you to use programs that help you
administer the system and that require superuser privileges.
apt-get: used to install and uninstall programs
chmod: modifiy the permissions of a file.
mkdir: make a directory, create a new directory (a new "folder", in
Winparlance).
#: # is not a command, is the sign that you're operating as superuser
(possibly because you executed sudo su earlier). The equivalent sign
for a common user is $.

I'd recommend you read some introduction to Linux (possibly this one?):
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

and then use the system for a bit, until you gain confidence with it.

Cheers!
-- 
Adriano Varoli Piazza
The Inside Out: http://moranar.com.ar
ICQ: 4410132
MSN: moranar at gmail.com