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linux_irl (thelemmy.club)
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[-] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 6 points 6 hours ago

Sorry, I don't have such weaknesses and thus cannot relate.

[-] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 14 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

For recursive behavior, tell me if each of these requires -r or -R (or either) without looking it up (man page, --help, web, etc):

  • chown
  • cp
  • ls
  • rsync
  • scp
  • zip
[-] dadarobot@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

without looking it up:

chown -R

cp -r

ls -r

rsync. (idk, i always google this one)

scp -r

zip -r

but why not look it up? you either use a tool and arguments often enough to memorize it, or you don't.

[-] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

It's not about looking it up or not, it's a challenge to the boasting of the commenter above me in the context of the OP's post.

[-] dadarobot@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 hours ago

ah yeah that's fair. but also i kinda agree with that person's response. getting frustrated with linux doesnt mean linux sucks, it means you are learning. ive been using linux for over 20 years, and i still find plenty of things that take me out of my element. and that's a good thing.

[-] PlexSheep@infosec.pub 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

-R -r -R -r -r -r I think

~~I don't know if this is true, but if yes, then -R is a GNU weirdness~~ No wait that doesn't make sense. ls is also GNU.

[-] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 1 points 4 hours ago

Very close! -R, either, -R, -r, -r, -r. I typically think "-R except for ssh-related", but zip violates that and I'm sure there are plenty of other counterexamples too. On the topic of ssh, I still can't keep -p or -P straight (ssh vs scp).

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

without looking it up (man page, --help, web, etc):

But why? Why would you need to do this when we have access to these tools?

Pointless test.

[-] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 hours ago

Oh god oh damn my kde doesn't tell me that...

Okay I'll give it a whirl:

  • chown: yes, I think
  • cp: no, pretty sure
  • ls: what? Like for a tree? For folder size? Idk I say yes because there's nothing recursive to me about standard ls
  • rsync: literally no clue have never used it but I'd guess no
  • scp: yes pretty confident
  • zip: yes also pretty confident

The actual reason I barely ever find Linux annoying is because my Fedora KDE just does all I need it to pretty much all the time.

[-] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 3 points 5 hours ago

With ls you can list the contents of directories recursively. Or you can list the contents in reverse order. One of them requires a lowercase "r", one requires uppercase, but which is which? It's not such a big deal that different commands have inconsistent syntax, but even having run Linux as my primary OS since 2004, and before that Unix since 1993, I still have to look these up sometimes.

[-] craftrabbit@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago

Aight I got cp wrong, which is kinda silly since I knew it for scp but I'm happy with that nonetheless

[-] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 2 points 6 hours ago

A couple more challenges:

  • As an unprivileged user, append multiple lines to a file owned by root, using sudo and a here document.
  • Redirect both stdout and stderr to a file using Bourne shell syntax (not bash!)
[-] tyler@programming.dev 2 points 6 hours ago

Every damn time.

I think rsync is lowercase, and maybe zip. The rest I think are uppercase. Complete guess though.

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

funny I never had this specific issue with recursive behavior. I find it obvious that only rsync and zip are recursive by default, but I'm not sure why.

edit: ah you mean which ones are lowercase or uppercase, that makes more sense.

this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
211 points (96.5% liked)

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