These days, many important tasks in Linux can be done from both graphical interfacesandfrom commands. However, the commandline has always been, and still remains, the interface of choice for Linux power users.
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are meant to be intuitive. With some computerexperi- ence, you can probably figure out, for example, how to add a user, change the time anddate, and configure a sound card from a GUI. For these cases, we’ll mention whichgraphical tool you could use for the job. For the following cases, however, you will probably need to rely on the command line:
❑ Almost any time something goes wrong — Ask a question at an online forum tosolve some Linux problem you are having and the help you get will almost always come in the form of commands to run. Also, command line tools typically offer much more feedback if there is a problem configuring a device or
accessing files and directories.
accessing files and directories.
❑ Remote systems administration — If you are administering a remote server, you may not have graphical tools available. Although remote GUI access (using X appli-cations or VNC) and web-based administration tools may be available, they usuallyrun more slowly than what you can do from the command line.
❑ Features not supported by GUI — GUI administration tools tend to present themostbasic ways of performing a task. More complex operations often require options that are only available from the command line.
❑ GUI is broken or not installed — If no graphical interface is available, or if the installed GUI isn’t working properly, you may be forced to work from the com- mand line. Broken GUIs can happen for lots of reasons, such as when you use a third-party, binary-only driver from NVIDIA or ATI and a kernel upgrade makes the driver incompatible.
The bottom line is that to unlock the full power of your Linux system, you must be abletouse shell commands. Thousands of commands are availablefor Linux to monitor andmanage every aspect of your Linux system.
But whether you are a Linux guru or novice, one challenge looms large. How do you remember the most critical commands and options you need, when a command shell might only show you this:
$
NOTE Most other versions of Linux, as well as Unix, define the default com- mand prompt as a dollar sign, $, (with the root user prompt #).SUSE, however, defines the default command prompt as a greater-thansign (>), but follows the convention of a pound sign (#) for the root user. Throughout this book, you’ll
see$ forthe shell prompt for commands that can be run as any user (no specialprivilege required).
You can change your prompt from the default > byusing a command like the following:
> export PS1=”[\u@\h \w]\\$ “ [ericfj@Brodgar ~]$
This command sets the prompt to your username, @ the current hostname, with
the current working directory, all in square brackets, followed by a more traditional
$ prompt. See Chapter 3 to learn how to set this prompt for all shells by placing
this command inside a bash startup script file.
SUSELinux Toolbox isnot just another command reference or rehash of man pages.Instead, this book presents commands in SUSE Linux by the way you use them. Inother words, instead of listing commands alphabetically, we group commands for working with file systems,connecting to networks, and managing processes in theirownsections, so you can access commands by what you want to do, not only by howthey’re named.
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