The Future Cource of PC OS'es

[Donald Darden]

Just as you have several ways to get to the DOS shell from Windows, you can open a command shell using Ctrl+Alt+ (F1 thru F4), or open a terminal from the desktop.  The name Terminal also refers to using a standalone monitor, mouse, and keyboard to access a computer (usually a mainframe), but don't be fooled in this case, because it just means getting access to a command shell where you can enter text commands,

Most Windows users probably don't know much about managing or editing the
text at the command prompt.  After all, Windows is intended to be a GUI (graphical User Interface), and that means minimal demands on the use of the keyboard, and more emphasis on point, click, and drag with the mouse.

But as stated before, much of what you can do in Linux requires some degree of typing.  Fortunately, if you can source it in a document, web page, text file, or other source outside the Terminal mode, you can copy and paste it into the terminal window and have it execute as though you had just typed it there.

There are some oddities related to Linux that may throw Windows users to start with.  For one thing, DOS has only a fairly small set of internal and external commands that are native to it, although these can be extended with 3rd party programs.  But Linux usually comes with a huge collection of shell commands, utilities, and additional programs that most Windows users have no counterpart to.  Not only is there more that you can do with Linux right out of the box, but there is also a much greater proliferation in ways that it can be done as well.  The prospects of having all that to learn must seem daunting.

However, you can learn it, one piece at a time, just as you learn most other things.  And the strangeness will eventually go away.  But as long as you keep one foot firmly entrenched in the Windows world, and only visit the Linux world infrequently, you will probably have difficulty in making the transition.

One difference is that just typing in a program name in DOS is sufficient to make it run, and the path is only necessary if the program is not found in the current directory nor in the normal sequence of paths as searched in the manner prescribed by Microsoft.  With Windows, you can click on either a program or a file with an extension registered to that program, and the program will launch. The Linux method is somewhat different, where the current directory is searched last, so it probably means that you want to include the path to ensure that the exact version of the program resides to ensure that that is the one that gets launched.  And since Linux does not employ file extensions with any degree of certainty, you may have to tell it that yes, I want to run this program by putting a "run" or period before it (the period is a shorthand way of entering "run').

In DOS, there are usually two ways to find out what a program or command is or does.  One is to type the command or program name with a /? or -?, or possibly and /h or -h after it to signify that you want help in learning what it is and what it does.  Not all programs will give you this information, but it is fairly common and often worth trying.  The other way is to type HELP and the command or program name after it, which may work if the command or program is native to DOS or Windows, and included in the Help system.  With DOS, capitalization of letters is not significant.

With Linux, capitalization is very important, and while you can try to use a command or program name followed by -?, -h, or --help, you also have the man (manual) or info (information) documentation available that you would use in place of the HELP that DOS and Windows provide.  In other words, you could try man [command name] or info [command name] with the actual name in place of the bracketed parameter.  If, for instance, you wanted to know what whoami does, you could try to type man whoami or info whoami, and check out the results.