Using Brace Expansion

The ultimate labor-saving trick at the command-line is brace expansion. Put simply, anything within braces ({}) is substituted within the specified filename. The following will create new directories called PhotosGermany, PhotosEngland, and PhotosSpain: mkdir Photos{Germany,England,Spain} In other words, the mkdir command takes the word Photos and combines it with Germany, England, and Spain, creating three … Read more

Shortcuts for Working in BASH

lists the most common keyboard shortcuts in BASH (there are many more; see BASH’s man page for details). If you’ve explored the Emacs text editor, you might find these shortcuts familiar. Such keyboard shortcuts are largely the same across many of the software packages that originate from the GNU Project. Often, you’ll find an option within … Read more

What Is the BASH Shell?

The best way of explaining the BASH shell to a Windows user is to compare it to the DOS command prompt. It lets you issue commands directly to the OS via the keyboard without needing to mess around with the mouse and windows (although it is sometimes possible to use the mouse within a BASH … Read more

Installing Windows Applications with Wine

Thousands of free applications. Ease to install. What if this isn’t enough? What if you just need that Windows application to do some special task? As with everything in Ubuntu, there’s a solution for that. The solution is Wine. Wine (a recursive acronym meaning “Wine Is Not an Emulator”) is a software layer capable of … Read more