Published: Tue 25 November 2025
By Dr. Gerg
In tools .
tags: linux communication friendship humanity
In a perfect world, I would remember every single detail.
Unfortunately I don't live in that world.
In my day job, because of certain Autoxxxx products, I'm stuck with Windows. But Linux Mint is normally running nearby as well.
I'd say about a third of the time I spend in Linux is spent in a Bash shell (terminal, or command line). Not being a school-trained *nixer, I find myself having to refer to resources to refresh my recollection of commands and/or syntax in order to complete a task. Like most people, I usually pop open a browser tab and type some words into the URL bar.
Over the years I developed a list of the things I most often queried. One day I had this spare domain and I decided to put it to use as a repository for my list.
Most of the things I need a prompt on are there, one click away . Is this some sort of Ultimate Guide ? No. Not even close.
Just one guy saying, "Hey man, you can look at my notes if you want."
I know that I can type man [command] and get very detailed instructions on how to use nearly any feature of a shell command. Often times, however, man gives me too much information that is not helpful, which slows me down, or worse, confuses me and side-tracks me. Same for [command] --help. I normally start there, but often I've already listed what I need in my List.
Like most people, I'm a creature of habit, and there are some commands I use frequently with a certain syntax of options. Thing is it may be months between uses, and in that time I have forgotten if it was -a or -k in the second position.
Forums
I appreciate the value of forums , I really do. But far too often I find myself wasting time following threads that either
1) are obsolete,
In part, that's what prompted me to start this list. And then there's forum drama. [[insert rolling eyes here]]
So I offer my notes to anyone who might benefit. No charge, no sign-up, no telemetry, AI or tracking. Just information, like we used to have on the Internet.
Wow. People freely sharing information on the Internet! That's a thing that works . Unless you're trying to make a living from the Internet, then I suppose that's not sustainable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Be nice.
