

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Unix Dweeb
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Opinions expressed by ICN authors are their own.
Sandra Henry-Stocker has been administering Unix systems for more than 30 years. She describes herself as "USL" (Unix as a second language) but remembers enough English to write books and buy groceries. She lives in the mountains in Virginia where, when not working with or writing about Unix, she's chasing the bears away from her bird feeders.
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of Sandra Henry-Stocker and do not necessarily represent those of IDG Communications, Inc., its parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies.


Tagging commands on Linux
Adding a tag to a Linux command can make it a little easier to reuse it. If you're struggling to remember complex commands or important locations in the file system, tags might help you out.

Using the Midnight Commander to browse Linux directories
Midnight Commander is a powerful tool that provides an easy way to browse, compare, move, modify and manipulate files.

How to modify user-account settings with usermod
The usermod command allows you to make a lot of different changes to user accounts without having to carefully edit files like /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow and /etc/group. It's definitely worth your time to look into it.

How to keep processes running after logging off in Linux
When you disown a Linux process in bash, you keep it from being terminated when you log out and allow it to finish on its own. This post shows how to use the disown command.

How to enforce password complexity on Linux
Linux gives you lots of ways to create complexity in passwords that include a lot more than just length, such as mixing upper- and lower-case letters with numerals and punctuation marks along with other restrictions.

How to download and play YouTube and other videos on Linux
The youtube-dl tool makes it very easy to download both webm and mp4 files on Linux systems. You just need the tool and the right URLs.

Navigating your Linux files with ranger
Ranger is a great tool for providing a multi-level view of your Linux files and allowing you to both browse and make changes using arrow keys and some handy commands.

Recovering deleted files on Linux with testdisk
This post describes testdisk, one of the tools that comes in handy for recovering recently deleted files (along with fixing partitions in other ways).

How to view information on your Linux devices with lshw
The lshw (list hardware) command on Linux systems provides a lot more information on system devices than most of us might imagine is available.

Using bash’s shopt builtin to manage Linux shell behavior
The shopt builtin offers 53 settings that can alter how bash behaves. Read this post and then refer to bash's man page to follow up on how these settings might work for you.

Using the Linux stat command to create flexible file listings
The stat command isn't only for looking at file details one file at a time. It can also be used to create file listings that contain just the information you want to see – with considerably more than an ls -l command.

Enhancing the Linux command line with aliases
Using bash aliases in Linux can save time and having to remember complex commands - and it can be fun, too.

11 ways to list and sort files on Linux
Linux commands can provide details on files and show options for customizing file listings, but can also reach as deeply into a file system as you care to look.

Managing process accounting on Linux
Process accounting can provide a lot of details that can help monitor user and system activity on Linux. Here's a look at how it works and what kind of data it provides.

Word game: Finding anadromes with Linux
Using Linux commands to find words that, when reversed, turn into other words turned out to be an enjoyable mental challenge. How many can you find?

Merging and sorting files on Linux
There are quite a few ways to merge and sort text files on Linux. The command to choose depends on your data and your preferences.

Linux dominates supercomputing
The Linux operating system runs all 500 of the world’s fastest supercomputers, which help to advance artificial intelligence, machine learning and even COVID-19 research.

Digging for DNS answers on Linux
Dig is a powerful and flexible tool for interrogating domain name system (DNS) servers. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into how it works and what it can tell you.

Summarizing your command usage on Linux
With a modest string of commands, you can get a quick look at what commands you're using on your Linux system and how often.
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