Ubuntu live cd :(

[Airbozo]

One that I'm finding very useful on Unix and AIX boxes is
ps -ef | grep xxx

There are differences in the flags, depending on the OS. On some UNIX variants, "ps -ef" = "ps -a". This is why "man ps" is so usefull...

Here's another;

netstat -ina
ifconfig -a
traceroute ip addy -or- hostname
ping ip addy -or- hostname
flood ip addy -or- hostname <- USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK AS IT DOES _JUST_ WHAT IT SAYS, flood the ip addy -or- hostname with pings... useful for testing...

[intergalacticman]

umm its version 6.06!!!!!! not 6.6

its ok i make that mistake all the time lol

[Drum Thumper]

flood ip addy -or- hostname <- USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK AS IT DOES _JUST_ WHAT IT SAYS, flood the ip addy -or- hostname with pings... useful for testing...

Ugh. Reminds me of the first major DOS attack on Yahoo. I was using the same screenname as one of the hackers at the time. The computer lab at the college that I attended at the time became part of their botnet.

And to make matters worse, a friend of mine who happened to work at the computer lab thru workstudy and I were joking around via the school's IM program about it at the time.

He almost lost his job, I almost got expelled.

Not fun at all.

Ok, I'll quit the hijack now.

[luciusad2004]

Thanks for all of the advice guys, ill go through those commands tomorrow if i get the time.

How helpful is the man command in Linux i tried it on my Mac a long time ago when i was trying to learn how to use the terminal and the manual was like... almost useless. I think the shell was bash. It was aimed at people who already had some experience and i just got lost.

If i get some spare change i might consider picking up a book though... give me something else to add to the list of stuff that will take me forever to actually get around to reading.

Thanks guys : )

-Lucius

Edit: On the hardware side of things... Here is the mobo i have. MOBO!!!

I downloaded the manual and it doesn't actually say much about the audio chip so all i have to go on is what the hardware utility tells me.

[.Maleficus.]

Well, it really depends on what they wrote in the manual. Some are helpful, some are not.

[Airbozo]

What Mal said.

Man pages are there for quick reference. Some are quite useful with examples and in depth explanations of all the flags and options, others are just simple cheat sheets to remind experienced users what the flags are.

Some are even comedic. I know the programmers get bored sometimes and use the man page for a creative outlet...

[luciusad2004]

Hey guys just thought i would drop in and let everyone know what was up. I think I'm going to put this on hold for a while.

I just haven't been very motivated lately and every time i try to get in to this and get something done i just end up with a disappointing couple of hours spent in front of a machine that honestly i probably wont use that much anyway.

Maybe once i get some money to buy myself a proper book ill look and see what i can get up and running. I just have a very difficult time trying to learn by flipping through man pages. They seem as though they would be much more useful after i get some basic working knowledge.

Anyway, ill probably tool around with this every now and then and try to get a handle on working with Linux but I'm not going to actively try to fix things that aren't working. I feel like such a disappointment. Sorry guys (and gals... i know there are some of you out there.)

+rep to everyone who sent in useful advice (if i can)

One last question. If I'm just going to be tooling around in the terminal and whatnot, would a live CD be sufficient for learning or would i want something that was installed on my PC so that i can edit files and whatnot.

I have various distro's that boot from a CD and it would be a much more pleasant experience to work on the "family" PC. Since its not technically mine, i can't really install an OS on it but its really nice to sit at a desk and not on my floor in front of a dresser staring up at an old outdated monitor.

Option wise i have,

• Ubuntu (obviously)
• Puppy (loads to ram, pretty quick, and not to bad on the eyes)
• DSL (also loads to ram, but i think puppy is nicer to look at)

I also know how to find anything else anyone might recommend.

Thanks for the help everyone.

-lucius

[.Maleficus.]

You may look into Mandriva, but it's somewhat of a system hog, but you may find you like KDE and might want to try it.


Also, I read somewhere about a LiveCD that let you mess with config files, the terminal, and all sorts of stuff that they put on for you to play with. It doesn't affect anything at all, and seems like a really handy learning tool. If I can find a link I'll post back about it.