I would like a list of dos equivalent commands for linux (linux noob)

[yoda313]

Ok here it goes. I was able to successfully hack my pogoplug nas last night after taking an hour or two to realize that the PUTTY program requires your devices USERNAME to login to the device you are trying to "ssh" into. Once I finally got that done I was able to complete this installation of ARCHLINUX onto the pogoplug device. This was the link I used:

http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-provideov3

Simply put I really don't know how to navigate through any variation of linux that is strictly, I'm using my words here, DOS based in looks. IE it looks like a dos command prompt.

I started using dos back when Dos 5.0 was the king of the hill. So basically I only know dos commands. But I want to know if there is a good list for "dos equivalent" commands in linux and its variants.

For right now I'm only using what the guides are telling me to do. I'd like to be able to explore a little more on my own.

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Also in linux how do you change drives? Is it as simple as say typing "e:" as you would in Dos to change to the e drive? Also how do you know what the drive letter is in linux?

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I think I'll join that arch linux forum for specific ARCH LINUX questions but I thought I'd get my feet wet here with more "general" commands in the Linux universe.

Thanks again.

Edit - I think this might be ok for me to get started on:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman

I would still like a "linux for dummies" type listing of commands though. Thanks. And I did register for that forum fyi.

Edit 2 - on a whim I did a google search for "archlinux gui" and voila a list popped up. I think I'll give one of them a try and see if it might make navigating this "brave new world" a fair bit easier for the uninitiated.

Thanks.

[jagabo]

http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html
http://linuxcommand.org/

[yoda313]

Thanks jagabo.

I think I successfully installed some of the guis. I even rebooted the pogoplug (/sbin/reboot). However I'm not sure how to load the gui.

In dos I would simply go to the directory it was installed and type the exe file or bat file to load the program. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in linux to get to the gui program.

I'll browse through the links you provided and hopefully something will clue me in the right direction.

Thanks.

[Hoser Rob]

Ever try a web search?

Here's my first hit for "linux dos equivalent commands": http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/unix_for_dos_users.html

I also learned msdos command line stuff 30 years ago. I also used command line unix. There wasn't any windows or xwindow.

Stuff like the above link is a good place to start but there isn't really a dos equivalent linux command line shell. Linux/unix is far more powerful. MSDos (and windows is still largely based upon it) assumes there is only one user, who has total command of the machine, doing one thing at a time.

Unix/linux does not assume this at all. It was designed from the start to be multi user and multi tasking. It's much more layered and hierarchichal, and the permission levels are much more stringent. And way better than windows. But it's not equivalent to dos.

Now, I don't know anything about pogoplugs at all. Can you not run any graphical shell? What do you want to do with it? Frankly I can't think of anything I'd want to do in linux that I'd need bad enough to do without a gui shell.

Drives have to be mounted and unmounted in linux. They have volume names but not letters like in dos/windows. You can't just assume they're called c: or whatever. No, I don't know the command to do this from the terminal, and if I can just look it up on the web, so can you. Other than system updates I don't use the terminal unless I have to.

Basically, '/' is root, and you can't modify root level things unless you give yourself root level privileges. Do not do this if you do not really know what you are doing. You can seriously break your linuxs system otherwise. This means you.

One of the most useful unix terminal commands is man ... for manual. Type man x for program x and it'll give you a short guide for it. Doesn't help if you don't know the command name, but it's pretty useful.

By all means join the archlinux forums, but I would expect they'll tell you to get a linux command line reference, just as I'm suggesting now. Some people think linux = free tech support, and that serious pro level unix geeks should just live for answering all their basic noob questions. Ubuntu has the best support of any linux distro, by far, and you won't get that even there.

Then they whine when they get flamed on those forums and get all bitchy (well, actually, that happens here too ...). Then it's "linux sucks". Kind of gives it a bad name.

[yoda313]

One of the most useful unix terminal commands is man ... for manual. Type man x for program x and it'll give you a short guide for it. Doesn't help if you don't know the command name, but it's pretty useful.

Oh thats sort of like the /? for dos right?

Ever try a web search?

Yep been hitting up google all night long. Thought i'd check here also though

By all means join the archlinux forums, but I would expect they'll tell you to get a linux command line reference, just as I'm suggesting now. Some people think linux = free tech support, and that serious pro level unix geeks should just live for answering all their basic noob questions. Ubuntu has the best support of any linux distro, by far, and you won't get that even there.

Yep just signed up so I'll see where I go from there.

Can you not run any graphical shell? What do you want to do with it? Frankly I can't think of anything I'd want to do in linux that I'd need bad enough to do without a gui shell.

It does apparently I just haven't figured out how to run the gui programs yet.

Basically the whole thing I"m trying to do is have a NAS that doesn't have any restrictions. The original pogoplug software and android app lets you stream jpgs, music and video files but its pretty picky about video. It won't stream any mkv files. Even if I can run the exact same mkv file (usually h264) on my tablet via sd card it won't let you stream it through the official pogoplug software - you can see it and download it to your tablet but you can't stream it which is what I want to do.

I'm nearly there but there are just a few ins and outs that I need to iron out before I can set it and forget it.

Thanks everyone. I'll be spending some time at the archlinux forum browsing and trying to pickup more basics on this.

Edit - oh and yes of course I can use my pc to stream anything to my tablet but the whole reason to use the pogoplug in the first place was to do it without leaving the computer on.

[Hoser Rob]

You may like this:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/fix_computer

[yoda313]

@hoser rob - nice

But I do plan on sticking with it. I think I'm almost there. All I need to do is know how to mount my external usb harddrive that has all my media files on it. I don't want to format it just mount it.

I'm searching around and trying to figure out which mount command I need to use. I'll post in the arch forum too. Thanks.

(fyi I have a upnp app on my tablet and it sees the minidlna client on the pogoplug but I don't have any files on it yet (the linux version I'm using is installed on a 2gb sd card and I have a 500gb usb harddrive that I have connected to it that has my media files and that second harddrive is what I need to mount). i'm nearly there

Thanks again.

Edit - I am getting some assistance on the arch forum so I think I'm making progress. Thanks again everyone.