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1500 questions
186
votes
8 answers

Can I watch the progress of a `sync` operation?

I've copied a large file to a USB disk mounted on a Linux system with async. This returns to a command prompt relatively quickly, but when I type sync, of course, it all has to go to disk, and that takes a long time. I understand that it's going to…
mattdm
  • 40,245
186
votes
10 answers

Command line: How do you rotate a PDF file 90 degrees?

When I scan documents that are landscape-oriented, the output PDF files are portrait and so all the PDF viewers display the scanned documents in portrait. From the command line, how do you rotate a PDF file 90 degrees? I tried searching and found a…
Trevor Boyd Smith
  • 3,941
186
votes
7 answers

What does the @ mean in ls -l?

I am using Mac OSX. When I type ls -l I see something like drwxr-xr-x@ 12 xonic staff 408 22 Jun 19:00 . drwxr-xr-x 9 xonic staff 306 22 Jun 19:42 .. -rwxrwxrwx@ 1 xonic staff 6148 25 Mai 23:04 .DS_Store -rw-r--r--@ 1 xonic staff …
Larry Wang
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185
votes
7 answers

Can't use exclamation mark (!) in bash?

I'm trying to use the curl command to access a http url with a exclamation mark (!) in its path. e.g: curl -v "http://example.org/!287s87asdjh2/somepath/someresource" the console replies with bash: ... event not found. What is going on here? and…
netbrain
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185
votes
5 answers

How to copy all files from a directory to a remote directory using scp?

My goal is copy only all files from ~/local_dir to user@host.com /var/www/html/target_dir using scp and do not create local_dir category in local_dir. /var/www/html/target_dir/files.. but not /var/www/html/target_dir/local_dir/files.. when use -r…
Edgaras Karka
  • 2,537
185
votes
8 answers

How big is the pipe buffer?

As a comment in I'm confused as to why "| true" in a makefile has the same effect as "|| true" user cjm wrote: Another reason to avoid | true is that if the command produced enough output to fill up the pipe buffer, it would block waiting for true…
Kit Sunde
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184
votes
10 answers

What to do when a Linux desktop freezes?

I'm a Windows guy, dual booted recently, and now I'm using Linux Mint 12 When a Windows desktop freezes I refresh, or if I am using a program I use alt + F4 to exit the program or I can use ctrl + alt + delete and this command will allow me to fix…
Lynob
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184
votes
8 answers

How do I limit the number of files printed by ls?

Is there a way to limit the quantity of listed files on a ls command? I've seen: ls | head -4 but to get head or tail to be executed I need to wait for ls to finish execution, and with directories with an enourmous quantity of files that can take…
AndreDurao
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183
votes
6 answers

How do I set a user environment variable? (permanently, not session)

This is irritating me. I seen several suggestions (all using different files and syntax) and none of them worked. How do I set an environment variable for a specific user? I am on debian squeeze. What is the exact syntax I should put in the file to…
user4069
183
votes
9 answers

What does the Broken pipe message mean in an SSH session?

Sometimes my SSH session disconnects with a Write failed: Broken pipe message. What does it mean? And how can I keep my session open? I know about screen, but that's not the answer I'm looking for. I think this is a sshd config option.
Peter Stuifzand
  • 2,061
183
votes
3 answers

Timezone setting in Linux

I'm setting the timezone to GMT+6 on my Linux machine by copying the zoneinfo file to /etc/localtime, but the date command is still showing the time as UTCtime-6. Can any one explain to me this behavior? I'm assuming the date command should display…
Rahul Dhobi
  • 2,037
183
votes
3 answers

Shell scripting: -z and -n options with if

I have a shell script where we have following lines if [ -z "$xyz" ] and if [ -n "$abc" ], but I am not sure what their purpose is. Can anyone please explain?
user3173953
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182
votes
3 answers

Linux: Difference between /dev/console, /dev/tty and /dev/tty0

On a Linux system, what is the difference between /dev/console, /dev/tty and /dev/tty0? What are their respective uses, and how do they compare?
Axel Fontaine
  • 1,963
182
votes
3 answers

Why ZSH ends a line with a highlighted percent symbol?

I've noticed this on occasion with a variety of applications. I've often thought it was because the output was cancelled early (ctrl+c, for example) or something similar, and zsh is filling in a new line character. But now curiosity has gotten the…
jktravis
  • 2,216
182
votes
6 answers

Trying to SSH to local VM Ubuntu with Putty

I have set up a VM of Ubuntu server, have installed OpenSSH, and am now trying to connect to it using Putty. Within Putty, under "Host name", I put "Ubuntu", given this is what I thought it was called when I set up the VM. However, I just get the…
wickywills
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