Karl Knechtel‭

which only tells you about a path that would be found in PATH. Often, people who think they have this question have a more general question - i.e., what will be used when the named command is reque...

posted 1y ago by Karl Knechtel‭

Suppose, in a UTF-8 locale, I do something like: touch $'\u200d.txt' The resulting file's name starts with a zero-width joiner character, which is apparently considered "printable" but is invis...

0 answers  ·  posted 7mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭

My understanding is that one of the key advantages of Linux is modularity: the actual Linux kernel is quite small, and then what we call Linux is that plus the "rest of the system" - hence "operati...

1 answer  ·  posted 1y ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 1y ago by matthewsnyder‭

By memory If you installed Linux yourself, then you were almost certainly informed about this at some point in the process. Generally, you're either expected to choose a separate installer accordi...

posted 1y ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  edited 9mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭

Overview A "useless use" or "abuse" of cat occurs when a Unix pipeline (sequence of commands that feed into each other, using the shell | or "pipe" operator) includes a call to cat that is unneces...

posted 2y ago by Karl Knechtel‭

I'm using the Gnome System Monitor in Linux Mint. Whenever I attempt to "End" or "Kill" a process, I am given this warning via a modal dialog (emphasis mine): Killing a process may destroy data,...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Kamil Maciorowski‭

This question is motivated by several threads and posts on the Linux Mint forums in which people encounter this sort of problem. On Debian-derived distributions of Linux, it's possible that th...

1 answer  ·  posted 6mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 6mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭

I know I can write a function at a Bash command line like so: $ test() { echo 'test' ; } I also found that I can write the } on a separate line, and omit ;: $ test () { echo 'test' > } ...

1 answer  ·  posted 12mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 11mo ago by bgstack15‭

A Desktop entry (.desktop file) is an executable plain text file, which lacks a shebang. Its contents typically look like: [Desktop Entry] Name=Fancy Example Exec=/usr/bin/example --enable-fancy...

1 answer  ·  posted 7mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 7mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭

I've noticed that the default kernel selection for Ubuntu 22.04, for example, is Linux 5.15.0. Ubuntu 22.04 is a LTS release, which is supposed to have standard support until April 2027, and Linux ...

0 answers  ·  posted 1y ago by Karl Knechtel‭

Motivating example: my Mint 20.3 distribution offers long-term support until April 2025, which matches the "standard support" offered for the upstream Ubuntu (20.04 "Jammy Jellyfish"). However, the...

2 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by matthewsnyder‭

Suppose for example I install a .deb package that has no dependencies, and the corresponding program includes some self-update feature (or the documentation asks users to do something like sudo foo...

1 answer  ·  posted 1mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 2d ago by GeraldS‭

I discovered that the -s flag for read is a Bash-ism: $ bash -c 'read -s -n 1' # waits until I press a key $ sh -c 'read -s -n 1' sh: 1: read: Illegal option -s Vanilla sh does offer read: ...

1 answer  ·  posted 7mo ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 7mo ago by Michael‭

I am using Linux Mint 20.3, with Cinnamon as a window manager. I have a folder named .pytest_cache on my Desktop: $ ls -1A | grep '^\.' .pytest_cache I know that if I open a Nemo window, navi...

0 answers  ·  posted 2y ago by Karl Knechtel‭  ·  last activity 2y ago by Mithical‭

I've been persistently advocating for an analogous effort in the Software community, and generally think that any Codidact community could likely benefit from doing something similar. As a practica...

posted 2y ago by Karl Knechtel‭