OStatic

Sure, there are plenty of fine GUI-based open source packages. But if you're a dedicated open source user, especially if you're using an operating system with its historic roots in Unix, you'll sooner or later feel the call of the command line. Bash, awk, sed, grep, diff, sudo, tee, tar...besides being fun to say, these are also powerful tools. But how do you develop expertise with this tool set, especially if you're migrating from a Windows background?

One technique, of course, is to simply dive in and start using things, with frequent reference to the man pages or to web searches to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Depending on your background, it's reasonably easy to get to the point of being an average user of the most common command-line tools. But then what?

One place to turn for more exercises for your command-line muscles is the Shell-fu web site. Here you will find hundreds of one-liners covering the most popular tools, from quickly suspending an SSH session to grepping efficiently for processes to tweaking your command prompt.

Of course, like any other collection of tips, some are more useful than others. Shell-fu has you covered here too, with simple up/down voting to let the most useful tips bubble to the top. You can also subscribe to their RSS feed of latest tips to give your brain some daily exercise, or pluck any tip off to bookmarking services with a couple of clicks.

• shell
• command line