Reader Chris writes in with an excellent tip that changes the prompt to red when using the root account from the terminal—as a reminder to be more careful.

One thing that gets debated over and over in Linux is the need for the command line. Linux shell is one of the things that makes Linux so great.

So you spend most of your time on the terminal? Just entered a few commands? Feeling bored? How about some command line games? Yep, there are some oldies but goldies you can delve into for a little recreation on the terminal.

What is behind all the fear and loathing of the command line? What drives this? Is it really that hard to type words? Don't most of us type words every day in email? Why should this be so repugnant?

Linux the cool factor

As I wrote in my last post, I think Linux is not perceived as cool by enough people.
While Linux is definitely very cool!

Last time I mentioned compiz, which gave very different responses. Some people think it's great others hate it. Today I'll throw in something completely different.

Next thing

The next thing that I think makes Linux cool, is the command line!

While a few commands, such as 'cd' are built directly into bash; many of the most important commands come from coreutils, a GNU package containing over a hundred commands.

Many times you might not be sure about which shell you are currently using. Especially if you are not on your system and logging into someone else’s, or maybe ssh’ing into a remote server. Worry not, because here are few simple commands that you can use to find out which shell you are using currently.

Just a few days ago I began the Terminal Test. The idea is to put up a tweet/ident (what do you call an update on Identi.ca?) every time I use the terminal explaining what I used it for and how it could be avoided. Since then, I have used the terminal a number of times. The experiment is not over, but I wanted to give an update on what is going on.