A for loop that renames files can act on half a filename, because bash splits the word list on whitespace before the body runs. A file holding the names report final.txt and notes.txt reaches the loop as three words, so the command in the body runs against a path that does not exist. Quoting inside
Bash for Loop in Shell Scripts: Syntax and Split Filenames Read More »
A dual boot keeps Ubuntu in three places, and the partition is only one of them. The root filesystem sits on its own partition, the bootloader sits on the EFI system partition, and the firmware keeps a pointer to that bootloader in its own boot list. Delete the partition on its own and the machine
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Changing the DNS server on Linux sticks only when the command lands where the component that owns the setting reads it. On Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Arch that component is systemd-resolved, and /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink it rebuilds. NetworkManager and netplan hold the same value on the machines where they own the connection, which is
How to Change the DNS Server on Linux So It Survives a Reboot Read More »
A link name can point at one release today and another tomorrow. A deploy usually calls that link www/current, and ln -s writes it with one flag deciding what happens when the name is already taken. Leave out -n and ln treats a directory name as a directory, so the link you meant to replace
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Installing an RPM package on Ubuntu can still leave a program that will not start, because the conversion never touches the binary inside it. I compared three Fedora 44 packages against an Ubuntu 24.04 host to find where a conversion stops paying off, and the answer turned out to be a version number the program
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A server you SSH into has its own idea about which editor you should use, and it rarely matches yours. Terminal based text editors come in two families, and the family decides how long your first edit takes. Modal editors such as Vim give you a keystroke grammar that pays off across a long session
4 Best Terminal Based Text Editors for Linux Read More »
Slack’s Linux download page never prints a version number, so the choice between four package formats is made blind. All of them carry the same build today, and it is 4.52.155. I compared the checksum of the .deb from Slack’s download host against the one in Slack’s own apt repository index, and I read the
Install Slack on Linux: Deb, RPM, Snap and Flatpak Read More »
chown changes the owner and the group of a file or a directory on Linux, and nothing else. The command writes the two fields that sit beside the permission string in a long listing, and the permission string belongs to a different program. What sends readers searching is the reporting. The change line names the
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Ubuntu Server boots to a text prompt, and one apt command puts a desktop environment on the disk. Seeing that desktop is the step that catches people out. A server has no monitor and SSH carries no pixels, so the greeter starts, runs, and draws to nothing you can look at. I ran the sequence
How to Install a GUI on Ubuntu Server and Reach It from Your Laptop Read More »
Ubuntu keeps a static IPv4 address in a YAML file under /etc/netplan, and a generator turns it into the configuration the system applies at boot. So editing /etc/network/interfaces does nothing on a current release, and a netplan file with the wrong interface name applies cleanly and changes nothing. The file owns the address, and the
How to Set a Static IP Address on Ubuntu (Desktop and Server) Read More »