Man

The man command is short for manual. It allows you to read the instruction manual for almost every command in Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Don’t know how to use an application? The first thing to do is to run the man command and then the name of the application.

Below is an excerpt of the manual for the man command itself.

> man man

Man: find all matching manual pages (set MAN_POSIXLY_CORRECT to avoid this) * man (1) man (7mp) man (1p) Man: What manual page do you want? Man: 1

I originally wrote this as a reply to a Reddit post but as I saved it, comments were blocked.

Give yourself little tasks and projects to do. Think of it as being like model kit building. You start with the easy kits like a plane with just a few pieces and as you get better you pick up new things like painting, sanding, and eventually making bigger better kits.

So, start with small things. For example, write a small program with a for-loop and get to know what all if the commands are really doing. This is your basic kit. Add in some variables. Add in user input, and keep going trying new things. Eventually, challenge yourself by learning how to work with a GUI. Sometimes your program will break. This isn’t a bad thing. It teaches you how to debug. What’s important is to take your time and experiment.

I received an email this morning. I’m actually expecting a package that has been held for some time and when I saw it, it seems potentially legit at first. But then I realized that I don’t use my work email for personal things like that. When I saw that it came from someone who didn’t have a UPS email address, and there is a .zip attachment. I don’t know for sure that this attachment has a virus or any kind of malware, but I won’t take the chance on company hardware.