Chapter 1. Things to Know About Your Command Line
Before you really dig in to your bash shell, you first need to understand a few things that will help you as you proceed throughout this book. These are some absolutes that you just gotta know, and, trickily, some of them are not obvious at all. But after you understand them, some of the ways in which your shell behaves will start making much more sense.
Everything Is a File
On a Linux system, everything is a file—everything, which may seem obvious at first. Of course a text document is a file, and so is an OpenOffice.org document, and don’t forget a picture, an MP3, and a video. Of course!
But what about a directory? It’s a file, too—a special kind of file that contains information about other files. ...
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