So we are all familiar at some point with the advice to use the command

dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sdx

or similar. People almost religiously think of dd as the tool to do this. It certainly can do the job, but not only is it really bad at it (mostly because it doesn't let the kernel automatically select a good block size), but it is also infamous for having a very fragile command syntax that is easy to typo and destroy your data with. dd wasn't actually written as a disk copying tool and is meant to be used as a data conversion tool. People using it to copy images to disks without doing any sort of conversion are kind of just abusing the fact that it reads one file in and writes another out. A lot of people don't know this, but on Linux/UNIX systems you can interact with block devices like they are normal files. As a result it's generally faster and safer to do something like

cp image.iso /dev/sdx

instead. People frequently uselessly risk using dd in places where ordinary file commands like cat and cp work fine. Some of you nerds probably already knew this but I want to spread it because people recommending dd is way too common.

Also, regardless of what commands you are using, when you finish doing anything involving writing to block devices always remember to run the command sync to make sure the kernel has actually written the data to the disk and isn't waiting to later.

  • StevenPinkerton [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    been using linux for a few years now and I still have no idea what anything in terminal means. people told me I'd learn but I can never make heads or tails of it

    • skeletorsass [she/her]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      It's really not too hard and makes a lot of tasks much faster, but you won't just magically learn it.

      Ubuntu has a tutorial here for basics: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/command-line-for-beginners#1-overview

      And you can find out the options for most commands by running them with -h or --help. You can also use the man command followed by the name of another command to view a manual for it. Pressing the tab key as you type a command will also suggest autocompletions on a lot of modern shells.

    • honeynut
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

    • fuschiaRuler [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Yeah, ive got a grip on the basics (cd, ls, nano, man, cp, mv) but thats about it. Ive been wanting to try more terminal based applications, but have struggled just getting started. My idea was to use a matrix client to start, but installing hasnt quite worked for me

      • the_river_cass [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        using an app that needs to take over the terminal won't help as you won't really get a feel for it. this is old school, but pick a distro that requires you to set it up through the command line and bash your way through it. you'll learn a lot about the many pieces that work together to make a modern operating system actually work and you put yourself in an environment where learning is the only choice.

        • Irockasingranite [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          you put yourself in an environment where learning is the only choice

          That's been my experience with learning linux in general. I've learned most of what I know about linux either by breaking things and needing to fix them, or by wanting to set up something I'd never done before and diving into wiki pages and config files.

          • the_river_cass [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I can not tell you how much I learned about linkers a couple of days ago beating my head into the "statically compile rust with c++ libs" wall for like 12 hours while barely making progress, lol. dear god symbol resolution is complicated.

            • Irockasingranite [she/her]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Days like that make you appreciate both how nice it is that linking works seamlessly 99% of the time, and also what an absolute mess your library setup usually is.

              • the_river_cass [she/her]
                ·
                4 years ago

                unfortunately, the library set up wasn't that unreasonable, it's just an unsupported and untested combination.

        • fuschiaRuler [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I appreciate the tip. Maybe i can find a junk laptop to fiddle with on craigslist or something. Any suggestions on the distro?

            • the_river_cass [she/her]
              ·
              4 years ago

              gentoo is much, much easier these days, lol. it's a mostly scripted install process you can bail out of to customize whatever you like. the only reason I suggest arch over it is that emerge is much more complex to learn than pacman and the archwiki is the best linux documentation on the internet (from a user perspective)

                • the_river_cass [she/her]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  I mean, I'm comparing it to compiling on a first gen athlon 64 from 2004 so not really? lol. there's also build caches for most everything in the basic install process already.

                    • the_river_cass [she/her]
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      I wouldn't bother, there's literally no advantage. nixos is a much more interesting source based distribution because it largely delivers on its promise of a fully reproducible installation - meaning you configure stuff once and (if you've pinned versions correctly), you will get the exact same results on any other computer you take that configuration to.

                            • dpg [he/him]
                              ·
                              4 years ago

                              Guix is usable on something like a thinkpad IME. It's really fun to learn Guile Scheme too and I ended up submitting patches.

          • the_river_cass [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            yea, I second arch. way back in the day, a stage 1 gentoo install was the most thorough way to learn but it took literally two weeks of beating your head into a wall and watching code fail to compile. your biggest problem now is that arch actually automates a lot of the install process - but enough of the core is still exposed that there's plenty to learn.

            also, I suggest a VM. easier to work with than a whole separate laptop.

          • Irockasingranite [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I'd say go with arch, it has a really detailed guide on the wiki for setting everything up.

    • mayor_pete_buttigieg [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      If you really want to learn, try the Bandit OverTheWire game, https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/