I’m always curious what folks use to get something done. Consider a few basic tools that many Linux people take for granted that don’t exist on Windows unless special dispensation is done. I’m talking about rsync and screen. So what can you do with rsync? Well, imagine sync’ing, backups, copying. Managing two disparate locations of code or files. I use rsync to sync my rockboxed Ipod and iAudio X5 to the mp3 share/mount.
Screen is one of those “duh” things I believe. You want to start a thing perhaps on a remote system but it captures your terminal and you have to leave the durned terminal open until its done. Screen lets you start something and walk away after sending it off to the screen happy place. When you get home, to Starbucks, whatever; you can fire up the Debian laptop (or whatever) and get back to the place that your action is doing. It will have continued to run, perhaps wgett’ing a file or copying something big. At a previous place, screen was this basic tool for survival when copying mySQL databases around. The other thing about screen is that the power and versatility is hidden in a rather funny little set of control and other keys. Study the man pages though. It will reward you.
Both of these are what I would call time savers. Rsync is a file and data and photo and music saver. Its saved me when a system was dieing from a bad disk and I was in Oregon. Its saved me when I wanted to move files all around in a data center I was working in. Screen creates a virtual reality for me to operate in that I can get back to later.
Its funny how such interesting, wonderful, and powerful things come in such small packages. I’ve always considered that apt-get is the same way in a few ways. Apt is one of those things that a debian developer told me is unfinished and only a concept program; but what it does do I like. You can keep aptitude, synaptic, yum, strumg, urpmi, whatever. Nothing approaches the usefulness of the apt.* family of stuff (apt-cache, apt-file, etc).
There are others that are these kinds of all purpose tools I bet; but these have always got me about the basic difference of how tools are used on Linux versus Windows. Windows seems to present you with a fairly limited set of possible tools on a system you just finished. You have to go download the things, run the installer, etc. Windows is a tool itself but I think what a person uses in Windows is not the default install. You have to add things. On Linux, you can use the set of tools almost immediately. Perhaps one of the most powerful is ssh. Its the gift, the medium, the wonder.
Thanks to all those folks that make these possible
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