Ittcl

Introduction to the Command Line (2nd ed.)

The Free Software Foundation, in conjunction with FLOSS Manuals, is updating our free book Introduction to the Command Line. This wiki discusses how volunteers can help, and lists proposed changes we are considering in the second edition.

What to do

The current draft is on the FLOSS Manuals site. You can sign up for an account on FLOSS Manuals and edit the book there.

Things to do to help include:

• Read parts of the book
• Try out parts on your computer and write notes in the book or on this page about problems such as:
  • Outdated instructions, where better methods exist to accomplish the same goal.
  • Important missing topics. (But remember that this book is only an introduction, and we want to keep it short by avoiding complex, advanced topics.)
  • Errors.
  • Confusing text.
• Add new topics to this wiki for the book. Again, please remember that we want to keep the book's length about the same. You can also suggest topics in the book that we could remove.
• Contact Andy Oram (andyo at praxagor.com) to offer your help as a writer or reviewer.

And tell your friends about this project!

Proposed changes

The following ideas for changes have been proposed so far. We do not want to make the book longer, though.

• Add a one-page quick-ref sheet to chapters on key tools.
• Add Git and perhaps a reference to GitLab
• Vi, nano should be the two editors covered, with pointers to others such as Emacs, Kedit, Gedit, and Puma. The latter two are graphical, should not be a focus.
• Drop the discussion of file descriptors (beyond 0, 1, 2) as too advanced. Add the <(command) feature as an alternative to piping.
• Consider Visual Bash
• Reduce the languages covered to Python and Ruby. Mention IDEs but do not cover any.
• Mention but do not cover telnet. FTP and Rsync are useful and should be covered
• Along with screen, mention Tmux, Byobu.
• Mention the Fish simple scripting.
• Mention Pipe Viewer (pv).
• Consider advanced tools: network tools such as ip and tracenet, strace, systemd.
• Add a history of the shell.
• Point to more web resources.