User talk:Novem Linguae/Essays/Toolforge bot tutorial

Linux vs. Unix

Novem Linguae Thanks for updating this page. Sounds like you might be a little less familiar with Unix than I am. I spent years working in it as an engineer. Linux was originally an open-source version of Unix that I first heard of when my engineering friends used it on their Windows machines. I could never understand why it was worth the trouble (and memory!), so I never tried it.

I bring it up only because I believe the Linux commands are basically inherited from Unix. I could be wrong on that. So it might be better to title that one section "Basic Unix shell commands" or "Basic Unix/Linux shell commands" and link to something that gives all of them. I would suggest putting in a line that says something like, "Most shells, like Putty and SSH, will be using Unix-like commands."

This would be helpful for Windows users who only know the horrible DOS command shell (and, perhaps, the later Powershell) that comes with Windows--original written I believe by Bill Gates. If only he had used Unix and didn't throw it together so quickly. ;) I was never impressed with the IBM-PC O/S, even though I have used its derivatives throughout most of my life. I had an Amiga 1000 that I bought when it first came out in 1985--a home computer way ahead of its time. It had true multitasking long before the PC could do it. But IBM's marketing won the day. The Amiga command line was way better than DOS too, although not nearly as powerful as Unix. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Typing cat /etc/os-release into Toolforge reveals it to be using Debian 10, which is Linux. So I think it's probably OK to call it Linux in this tutorial. My goal with that section is to take some notes on what common Linux commands are, since I don't know them very well since I'm a Windows guy. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Makes sense.--David Tornheim (talk) 00:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)