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1500 questions
75
votes
9 answers
How do I choose a graphics card for Linux?
I'm building or buying a new Linux system, and I'm trying to select the best graphics card for my needs. How do I go about making this decision?
There's dozens of computer-gear review sites which drool over every detail of new graphics hardware and…
mattdm
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75
votes
6 answers
Differences between volume, partition and drive
What do these terms mean exactly?
partition
volume
drive
On Windows, one may say drive C: or partition C:. On Linux I'm not sure what should be used for partitions because they don't have a name.
user44920
75
votes
6 answers
What NOT to put on an SSD?
I bought an SSD and I am going to set up my desktop system with a completely fresh Linux installation.
SSDs are known to be fast, but they have a disadvantage: The number of writes (per block?) is limited.
So I am thinking about which data should be…
user41961
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- 5
75
votes
5 answers
Show PATH in a human-readable way
I want to show my PATH environment variable in a more human-readable way.
$ echo…
Arturo Herrero
- 2,386
- 2
- 19
- 18
75
votes
2 answers
Command to zip multiple directories into individual zip files
I have a single directory that contains dozens of directories inside of it.
I'm new to command line and I'm struggling to come up with a command that will zip each sub-directory into a unique sub-directory.zip file.
So in the end my primary…
Evster
- 1,695
- 2
- 13
- 12
75
votes
2 answers
pwd without symlinks
If I do pwd I notice it uses whatever symlinks I used to get into the current directory. Can I get it to tell me the "real" directory I'm in ... i.e. the path from the root to my current directory without the use of any symlinks?
JoelFan
- 1,317
- 1
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- 14
75
votes
11 answers
A tool for automatically applying RandR configuration when external display is plugged in
is there a tool which enables one to:
remember current RandR configuration (position, orientation, resolution etc) on per-monitor basis,
automatically apply last known good configuration as soon as the display is plugged in, with no need to muck…
Yaroslav Fedevych
- 913
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- 7
- 7
75
votes
2 answers
Process with weird random name consuming significant network and CPU resources. Is someone hacking me?
In a VM on a cloud provider, I'm seeing a process with weird random name. It consumes significant network and CPU resources.
Here's how the process looks like from pstree view:
systemd(1)───eyshcjdmzg(37775)─┬─{eyshcjdmzg}(37782)
…
oldhomemovie
- 1,627
- 2
- 13
- 18
75
votes
5 answers
How portable are /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr?
Occasionally I need to specify a "path-equivalent" of one of the standard IO streams (stdin, stdout, stderr). Since 99% of the time I work with Linux, I just prepend /dev/ to get /dev/stdin, etc., and this "seems to do the right thing". But, for…
kjo
- 14,779
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75
votes
2 answers
Why is bash's prompt variable called PS1?
The environment variable for the bash prompt is called PS1 (usually set in ~/.bashrc). What does PS1 stand for? Is there a PS2?
Olivier Lalonde
- 5,149
- 5
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75
votes
5 answers
Moving Linux install to a new computer
I know that it can, in some circumstances, be difficult to move a Windows installation from one computer to another (physically move the hard drive), but how does that work on Linux? Aren't most of the driver modules loaded at bootup? So…
Falmarri
- 12,897
- 17
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75
votes
1 answer
How do I find out more about socket files in /proc/fd?
Looking in /proc/$mypid/fd/, I see these files
lrwx------ 1 cm_user cm_user 64 Oct 14 03:21 0 -> /dev/pts/36 (deleted)
lrwx------ 1 cm_user cm_user 64 Oct 14 03:21 3 -> socket:[1424055856]
lrwx------ 1 cm_user cm_user 64 Oct 14 03:21 4 ->…
benhsu
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75
votes
2 answers
Break a large file into smaller pieces
How do I break a large, +4GB file into smaller files of about 500MB each.
And how do I re-assemble them again to get the original file?
Stefan
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75
votes
19 answers
Which GNU/Linux distribution for an old system from 1999?
I have a 12-year old Toshiba Libretto laptop with a Transmeta Crusoe Processor TM 5600 running at about 600 MHz, 128 MB RAM and S3 Savage graphics. Which Ubuntu (or any other GNU/Linux based OS) could I use for stable operation?
I intend to use the…
Kishan
75
votes
4 answers
How to delete old packages installed by pacman in Arch Linux?
I have recently installed Arch Linux and found that I am eating away at a lot of storage relatively quickly. For whatever reason I have already used 17GB in just about 2 weeks. I do not have a great deal of software installed so I am led to believe…
sherrellbc
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