Re: How to set /etc/fstab again after system has started

On 2006-12-01, Richard Steiner wrote:
Here in comp.os.linux.misc,
et472@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Black) spake unto us, saying:

CBFalconer (cbfalconer@xxxxxxxxx) writes:

There is a real need in Linux/bash for the facilities of 4dos,
especially including the provision for attaching an arbitrary
'description' to any file. In addition the 4dos provisions for
switching directories and command history are superior to bash.

If there's a real need, either it's in one of the other shells, or
someone can write it.

It seems to be hard for some reason for some UNIX people to grasp that
good features and ideas actually exist in other operating systems.

Unix is full of good ideas from other systems.

For this reason, many otherwise useful features seem to never make it
into Linux or the BSDs. :-(

If there's a feature from another system that is not implemented,
there's nothing stopping you from implementing it or getting
someone else to implement it.

This is true for both the CLI and the GUI, BTW. No X window manager or
desktop seems to have implemented OS/2 workgroup folders, either, but I
know a few folks besides myself who would love to see them implemented
on a Linux desktop somewhere.

Describe exactly what you want. Comparatively few people have used
OS/2, so how can they be expected to implement it? Start a
Sourceforge project and try to get people interested in it.

It's such a nice way to group multiple programs together into a
logical work unit and run/close them as a set instead of having to
do it all individually, but grouping programs into execution groups
is a foreign concept to UNIX/Linux GUIs (AFAICT).

What does it do that cannot be done with a script?

It's not as if the shell is what makes Linux Linux.

No, but if one spends a lot of time at a shell prompt, the features of
that shell prompt become somewhat more important.

There are many areas where Linux shells are seemingly lacking when they
are compared to 4DOS/4OS2. You folks might not see it, but I suspect
you haven't been using 4DOS/4OS2 for the past decade plus, either. :-)

It sounds more as if you are just used to one way of doing things
and don't wnat to find other ways.

For me, the big one is "select", which allows any shell command or alias
to use a fullscreen point-and-shoot interface to arbitrarily select the
target files for an operation, and which allows for some customization
of the file list presented as well as the method used to execute the
defined command(s) against the selected file list.

It's sometimes very nice to be able to use visual file selection within
a shell command without having to run an actual file manager.

For example:

alias tdel select del (*.*)

creates an alias called tdel which allows the user to interactively
scroll through a file list and then tag (and subsequently delete) an
arbitrary set of files in the current directory.

alias tunz select unz (*.zip)

provides a point-and-shoot interface to process selected zip files in
the current directory and run an unzip script on them.

Not everything lends itself well to wildcards, and I miss the select
command under Linux a lot. :-(

Bash has a select command. Have you tried it? It's not quite the
same, but what you are describing can easily be done with a shell
script.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author | <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: | My code in this post, if any,
A Problem-Solution Approach | is released under the
2005, Apress | GNU General Public Licence
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why newbies dont RTFM...
    ... Even though I've used Linux before, I've never had to do any ... > BASH BUILTIN COMMANDS ... > last command exited within ... > unless the shell is not exeâ ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Why newbies dont RTFM...
    ... Even though I've used Linux before, I've never had to do any ... BASH BUILTIN COMMANDS ... last command exited within ... unless the shell is not exeâ ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Re: [opensuse] deleting
    ... during the installation of jre 1.5.0 (according to the install ... i'm learning and having fun with my new toy, the command line interface. ... understand and use linux more efficiently. ... /bin/sh is the Bourne Shell. ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: shell scripting
    ... and am assuming an sh-compatible shell here.... ... command 1 options arguments ... To run the script, do: ... then you need to use the full path to execute it: ...
    (comp.unix.questions)
  • Re: shell scripting
    ... and am assuming an sh-compatible shell here.... ... command 1 options arguments ... To run the script, do: ... then you need to use the full path to execute it: ...
    (comp.unix.shell)