Efficient Linux at the Command Line
Daniel J. Barrett
O’Reilly, 2022
I’ve worked in Linux for over 2 decades, read dozens of articles and several books on using Linux, and this book still taught me of things I didn’t know (or remember).
Unlike many N cool things you can do with Linux or X things every programmer should know about Linux articles, Barrett makes a point of discussing some of the reasoning behind the command line. People seem to say less about the Unix philosophy now-a-days, but the author reminds us why it is important. He extends the basic Unix philosophy discussion to explain why this way of thinking leads to more efficiency at the command line and why you would care.
This means that in addition to cool tricks like history expansion, pushd/popd, and various basic command line tools, Barrett makes a point of walking you through why a quick (or even advanced) one-liner can manipulate information you need more quickly than finding a specialized tool to do what you want. If a quick command line can extract data from somewhere and get it mostly in a form you need, then you can focus on your actual task instead of the set up for the task.
A Book in Three Parts
The book is organized in three parts:
- Core Concepts (4 chapters)
- Next-Level Skills (5 chapters)
- Extra Goodies (2 chapters)
The first section focuses on the basics you will need to really get the most out of the command line. This is also the section that teaches the most about the philosophy. Despite the fact that these concepts and tools are core, I still found some ideas and options I wasn’t aware of.
The second section focuses on expanding your understanding of the concepts and how you make use of them. It includes a chapter on useful command line tools, a chapter pushing your understanding of the shell, another pushing your understanding of processes and commands, and then a couple more using what you have learned.
The final section is more of a grab bag. With one chapter that starts with expanding your use of the terminal and shell, then continuing to more powerful uses of tools he has introduced (extracting information from the web in interesting ways without using your browser). The final chapter starts with some tips that didn’t fit in above and then points to more long-term learning to improve your efficiency.
Conclusion
This is a really good book for introducing some of what you can do with the Linux command line. If you are very familiar with the command line tools, you will probably still find a few tips and tricks you might not be aware of. Very definitely recommended.
Learning these tools and techniques and getting comfortable with them allows you to zoom ahead of people that have not realized the power of making the computer work for them.