Question

I want to stop losing precious time when dealing with Linux/Unix’s shell.

If I could get to understand it well, that would be great. Otherwise:

• I may end up losing a day just for setting up a crontab.
• I’ll keep wondering why the shebang in this script doesn’t work.
• I’ll keep wondering what the real difference is between:
  • . run.sh
  • ./run.sh
  • . ./run.sh
  • sh run.sh
  • sh ./run.sh

You see, it’s these kind of things that cripple my Linux/Unix life.

As a programmer, I want to get much better at this. I suppose it’s best to stay with the widely-used bash shell, but I might be wrong. Whatever tool I use, I need to understand it down to its guts.

What is the ultimate solution?

Answer 1

Man pages are probably the ‘ultimate’ solution. I’m always amazed at what gems they contain.

You can even use man bash to answer some of the questions you raise in this question.