Chapter 2. IMPROVING ON USER COMMANDS

A typical Unix or Linux system includes hundreds of commands, which, when you factor in starting flags and the combinations of commands possible with pipes, should produce millions of different ways to work on the command line. Plenty of choices for anyone, right? Well, no. In fact, for all its flexibility, you can't always get what you want.

Unlike other operating systems, however, with Unix you can usually cobble together something that'll do the trick quite easily, whether it's downloading some nifty new version of a utility with additional capabilities (particularly from the great GNU archive at http://www.gnu.org/), creating some aliases, or dipping your toe into the shell scripting pond.