The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users

Published on April 16, 2008 in General by Rami Taibah

Passing it onSwitching to Linux can be very daunting, most seasoned Linux users experienced that first hand. After all, at some point they were also “noobs”. However, the Linux community has excelled in making the switch for beginners as easy as possible by providing guides, howtos, tweaks, and general advocacy articles. When I first made the switch 3 years ago, I found the community welcoming me with open hands on forums, IRC channels, and E-mail, I was surprised how helpful these penguins were!

For this, I feel obliged to give back to the community that has always been there for me. To pass down the torch to newer Linux generations. Over here I compiled a list of 7 habits that I wish someone told me when I started out. I believe that getting into these habits will make the Linux experience more secure, convenient, educational, and ultimately more enjoyable.

1-Never Login Using ‘root’ GUI

If there was one habit that one should strictly abide by, it’s probably this one. Most of us come from a Windows background, and we have the notion that more power is better, so we login using our administrator accounts. Well let me tell you my friend, that this is a major reason that Windows is plagued with viruses and insecurities, half the world is currently running ‘root’ accounts!

Suse on RootWith great power comes great responsibility, and with ‘root’ powers you should be aware of the consequences of EVERYTHING you’re doing, and even then, mistakes happen. I remember my beginnings with SUSE Linux, there were lot of administrative tasks I needed to do but had no idea how to go about them without the GUI, so I so innocently log out and login onto the ‘root‘ GUI. The default wallpaper of the ‘root‘ GUI on SUSE were lit fuse bombs tiled beside each other. Back then, the symbolism totally flew over my head, coming from a Windows background, I wasn’t really doing anything wrong.

But what are the dangers of logging in as root?

  1. Well imagine you’re on the trapeze without a safety net, frightening isn’t it? Well that’s effectively what you are doing when you login as root, you can inadvertently hose your whole system
  2. You are at the risk of running malware. Any program that is started under root mode will automatically be given root privileges
  3. If there is a common security hole that hasn’t been patched yet, you could be totally “pwned”
  4. It’s common Unix convention, never run anything in root mode unless absolutely necessary. If a non-admin program asks for root access, you should be suspicious

Generally, instead of logging onto your root GUI, use any of the following techniques:

  • Use “sudo” or “su” , and kill the session when your done
  • If you don’t know how to do it in the command line, use “gksu” or “kdesu”. For example, press alt+f2 and type “gksu nautilus“. Close the app as soon as you finish

2-Properly Name Your Files

In a Linux environment, you can name your files whatever you want except for, 1) the forward slash “/” which is reserved for the root directory, and 2) a null character. Anything else is technically acceptable, however there are some best practices that you should abide by in order to avoid any future complications:

  • As a rule of thumb, only use alphanumeric characters, hyphens, periods, and underscores
  • Avoid special symbols like dollar signs, brackets, and percentages. These symbols have special meanings to the shell, and could cause conflicts
  • Avoid using spaces, handling files with spaces in the terminal is kind of awkward. Replace spaces with either hyphens or underscores

I personally have grown into this habit, I find myself following these guidelines even in a Windows or Mac environment.

3-Place /home on a Different Partition

Doing this gives you extreme flexibility, a kind that you never imagined before. Having /home in a separate partition enables you to reinstall your system or even change your whole distro without losing your data and personal settings. Just keep the “/home” partition intact and reinstall whatever you want on your “/”. Now you can try out distros as much as you want, without worrying about your data and personal settings, they go with you on the go ;) .

If you weren’t lucky enough to know this before installing your system, then do not despair! Carthik from Ubuntu Blog takes you in a step-by-step guide titled “Move /home to it’s own partition“

4-Proper Crash Management

Learn how to avoid this!Linux is very robust and stable, however every system can come down to it’s knees every once in a while. Before you head to CTRL-ALT-DEL, the restart button, or the plug, you should know how to properly handle any crash. As opposed to another un-named operating system, you should be able to easily recover your system without actually restarting! I personally go through different levels, if one doesn’t work I elevate it to next step:

  1. I have the “force quit” applet on my taskbar, if any app starts to act up just click on the “force quit” icon and then kill the app
  2. If that doesn’t work, draw up a terminal and type “ps -A” , and take note of the Process ID (PID) of the culprit app, then kill it. “kill PID”
  3. Use the “killall” command, for example, “killall firefox-bin”
  4. If your whole GUI is frozen, and drawing up a terminal is impossible, then press CTRL-ALT-F1, this will take you to another terminal, and virtually a whole new session. From there kill the culprit app using step 2 and 3.
  5. If that doesn’t work, you might want to restart your GUI using the CTRL-ALT-Backspace combo. Beware, that this will kill all your GUI apps currently running
  6. Invoke CTRL-ALT-F1 and do CTRL+ALT+DEL from here. This will not instantly reset your system, merely perform a standard reboot, it’s safe. (Assuming you want to restart and CTLR-ALT-F1 works)
  7. Finally if nothing works, don’t rush to the hard reset button, try to Raise a Skinny Elephant

5-Play The Field

You were probably recruited to your current distro by a friend, it suited you, and stuck with it. That’s great, but there is probably something better for you out there. Why not harness the flexibility and richness of Linux and Open Source? Don’t be afraid to experiment around with different distros, apps, window managers, and desktops. Experiment until you find the best fit. Think of it this way, if you are currently living in the best place on earth for you, traveling around the world wouldn’t really harm right? In fact you might find a better place to live in, but if you didn’t, the time you spent traveling would not have gone to waste, you would have learned a lot about other countries, other people and traditions, different ways of thinking, and ultimately had fun!

Every new thing you try out will contribute to your incremental learning, in a year’s time you will have a good grasp on Linux and the Open Source world. I personally tried out at least 10 distros, 4 desktops, and 5 window managers. My recent article Etymology of A Distro got me interested in a couple more distros such as Zenwalk, Foresight, and Sabayon. Play the field, my friend, it will do you good.

But before you proceed, pay heed to these few hints:

  • Set up your perfect system that you feel comfortable with, you need a workable system 24/7 right? Then test around using one of the below points
  • Harness the power of virtualization! Install Vmware or Virtualbox. Use them to test out the distros
  • Alternatively, if you are not big on virtualization, you can set up a separate partition to test new distros. A partition that you couldn’t care less about
  • Ultimately, you can have a main PC and a test one. Wreak havoc on the test one
Anime image is licensed by Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0
Original Artwork by Juzo Kun, Modified by Wayne Richardson.

6-Nurture Your CLI Adoption

Now I am not going to advocate learning the command line, there are numerous articles that emphasise on it’s importance. What I am assuming here is that you already know it’s importance, and have a rudimentary understanding on how to do some simple administrative tasks. You are already hacking away, tweaking and configuring, following the different guides and howtos scattered all over the tubes, but don’t just copy and paste!! Meaning, instead of just headlessly executing commands some random guy half way across the world told you to execute, try to understand what every command does. Why did the guide ask you to do this, as opposed to something else? Understand the rationale of the steps you are asked to do. These commands are highly relevant to you, and will help you gain a better understanding than any 101 guide.

After a while you will notice that you have amassed a good deal of CLI lore.

At the end of the day it’s just a pseudo-language! Every command is probably just an acronym of something, or a cut down version of a real word. You expect your dog to understand “Spike fetch ball” so why don’t you expect to understand “sudo mv /file1 /file2″?

7-Always Be Ready to Unleash The Power Within

Personally, I had numerous occasions when a friend asked me to do something on his/her computer, but found myself crippled because of his/her choice of OS. At other times I wanted to do something urgently but the only computer had another crippled OS. Spare yourself the agony, have Linux with you all the time, whether it’s on a USB pendrive, a live CD, or even a live CD business card ! There are dozens of good Linuces out there that are perfect for on-the-go computing. Knoppix, DSL, and Puppy Linux are just a few examples.

I personally don’t apply this habit, which is a shame, I really need to get my act together! :P </publishes and heads to pendrivelinux.com>


About

Rami Taibah the founder of The Linuxologist and a self proclaimed geek and Linux aficionado. This fall, he will be pursuing an MIMS degree at UC Berkeley, California. You can follow him on Twitter @rtaibah.

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  • http://www.topstumbles.com/story/712 Top Stumbles – Best of StumbleUpon

    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Royal HeHe2-ness!…

    Switching to Linux can be very daunting, most seasoned Linux users experienced that first hand. After all, at some point they were also “noobs”. However, the Linux community has excelled in making the switch for beginners as easy as possible by pro…

  • http://www.pliggs.com Geoserv
  • pongscript

    I like linux, but ofcource there is one think i dont like about it. it changes too often in short period of time. once i installed a distro. a newer version of distro will come up. and sometimes changes were ok. but too much was bad idea.

  • daniel

    I hear ya, pongscript. Why can’t those pesky developers just let things stagnate once in a while? All those forced upgrades all the time piss me off. Amirite?! Idiot.

    Great article. Dugg.

  • chon

    Daniel……nobody forces you to upgrade.
    I have pclos .93 on one of my partitions.
    It isn’t upgraded for a year, and runs just fine.

    Pongscript. if a new one comes out, do you really have to install it?
    Who is standing behind you with a gun to your head ?
    I never upgraded to XP, just because it was there. I still run win98 without any problems.

  • Ridgeland

    I agree very much your views. But I don’t move /home rather I created a partition /Data that has all the NFS stuff like /Data/Images and /Data/Music shared by OS to OS and PC to PC. /home has settings that can be OS dependent + package version dependent. I have another partition /UserHome to have bookmarks for Firefox, all of Thunderbird, .bashrc. Several things but far short of all of /home. Links or copy is easy to do for so few items. Bookmarks link to a common file so all adds and edits are shared OS to OS. Firefox 3 breaks this though :(
    I found SuSE handled my webcam better than Ubuntu then I found Mandriva did better than SuSE. Don’t be afraid to multi-boot and you can have the best available.

  • L815

    pongscript, why not go with a LTS(long term support) version?

  • http://syntaktisk.dk Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér

    I disagree with the concept of recycling /home. The thing is, if you use varying systems, they are bound to use different versions of software; and if they do, there will be problems with the dotfiles with settings.
    Now, I usually have a dual- or triple-boot system, and I have made a storage partition, which goes into /mnt/storage.
    After that, I have a script with:
    ln -s /mnt/storage/documents ~
    ln -s /mnt/storage/library ~

    - and a couple of more folders which get symlinked in the home folder.

  • http://urn noada

    make a tips file full of command line tips for yourself. Who can remember all the particulars. But Hardy Heron is so gui friendly that your grandma could use it.

  • http://www.crazyengineers.com/forum/computer-science-engineering/1189-practical-problem.html#post12585 Practical Problem – CrazyEngineers Forum

    [...] mine is happier on openSUSE – he uses Photoshop and Flash very frequently. Check out this link – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Royal HeHe2-ness! __________________ Do not click [...]

  • Saumil

    digg bait stuff, utterly shallow on information content.

  • http://yifanj.cn yifan

    Thanks, this is great!

    But I cant get the skinny elephant work…all I did is press Alt+SysRq+i, there would be nothing happen but a normal screenshot dialogbox popping up. Don’t know much about this:)

  • http://www.x13.com scott

    “distro without loosing your data” – um, is your data loose? or do you mean “losing”?

    (but hey, good article)

  • http://yifanj.cn yifan

    And the above issue is on SLED10.

  • Soandso

    What’s up

  • http://rametux.wordpress.com RameTux

    Woow.. It’s so me.. I always tell everybody to do so but they just don’t get it. They just don’t understand the meaning of effectiveness.
    Nice article..

  • gwelch925

    Forget partitions, with exception to the boot partition, put everything into Logical Volume Groups. I would say all distributions support them, but ironically the Ubuntu Live Install CD requires finagling. At home I use them to replace partitions, for those that don’t know you can only have 4 primary partitions per harddrive. So one for swap, one boot, one home/storage, and one root. What to do if you want to double, triple, dodeca boot? Use an LVM setup. I am currently triple booting Fedora, OpenSuse, and I plan on rotating the third. At work we use LVMs for everything. Snapshotting every hour and daily gives use intermittent backups, add weekly tape backups and the SCSI Raid we are fairly well covered. One server is running Xen and uses a VolumeGroup to run, currently, 3 Virtual Machines at once. Pretty powerful stuff.

  • http://somethingsuperb.com kgrube

    “Why did the guide as you to do thi…”
    should be
    “Why did the guide ask you to do thi…”

  • http://bhagwatgm.blogspot.com bhagwat

    useful tips. thanks

  • http://www.dagorret.net/?p=23 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Dagorret

    [...] will make the Linux experience more secure, convenient, educational, and ultimately more enjoyable.read more | digg story [...]

  • http://www.fsckin.com/2007/10/02/amazing-anime-style-caricatures-of-linux-distribution-mascots/ Wayne

    Please don’t use Creative Commons licensed content and not properly attribute the authors.

    http://www.fsckin.com/2007/10/02/amazing-anime-style-caricatures-of-linux-distribution-mascots/

  • Sean Penn No Relation

    Yes, symlinking folders (like Documents) in your home directory is definitely the way to go. Just keep in mind that if for some reason you decide to share your home directory via Samba or NFS those directories may be inaccessible on some clients.

  • Frank

    I have been logging in as root since SuSe 6.3,
    that is 9 years. Nothing happened. But everytime
    I log in as a simple user, I get a fit.

    As for crash recovery, read the kernel documentation
    file SAK.txt by A. Morton and hurry up: assign the
    SAK key to .

  • Sachin

    Nothing new :(

  • http://www.avlookup.com avl

    Sachin is right….
    these are age old tricks

  • http://www.webmaster-roadmap.co.uk/134-what-makes-a-good-linux-user.html Webmaster Roadmap » What makes a good Linux user?

    [...] Source [He He 2] [...]

  • Bish

    Had to stop reading once you stopped writing English. Argh! What a terrible way to represent some great pointers. Can’t recommend this article until it’s been proofed.

  • http://blog.kutakutik.or.id/linux/good-linux-user-should-be-like-this/ Good Linux User Should be like This.!! | Cyber Space in One Hand

    [...] very inspired from Hehe2 [...]

  • http://plfoto.com/156593/autor.html Avatar

    There is also one more thing about recovering from system halt

    when Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn’t seem to work (or even you are unable to go to Terminal1 with Ctrl+Alt+F1) you naturally think about “cold rebot”. There is much more civil way: Punch Ctrl+Alt+SysRq+(S, U, B). The sequence is important: first one Synces disks, second Unmounts the drives and third reBoots the system. The outcome is that most probably no data will be lost. This option however could be disabled in older kernels. to check if it works, go to terminal 1 and punch Ctrl+Alt+SysRq+H – it will display all available options.

  • John

    I love dogs.
    I got a wallet.

  • peej

    I am looking for an easy text editor program that will ftp up my changes at the press of a button. I am comming from a windows background and use a program called “crimson editor”. As yet (strangely enough) I have not decided upon the distr’ of linux I want to use. Any suggestions out there, thanx peej.

  • http://www.freebsd.org FreeBSD

    Linux is a piece of sh*t. Use FreeBSD!

  • Nick

    NIce write-up. One nice thing to add, on section 4 – Proper Crash Management, between steps 4 and 5 or 5 and 6, depending on the nature of the ‘crash’, add remote login to the system to attempt to kill the process. I am sure every true Linux geek out there has more than one PC and more than one means to connect remotely to that PC :)

  • C.D.

    Just a simple tip for all new, and maybe some “seasoned” Linux users: keep a journal. Writing down the commands used and why, you can refer back at anytime.

  • http://samthurston.com/ Samuel T

    “handling files with spaces in the terminal is kind of awkward.”

    I see your point, that backslash key is hard to reach, and double-quoting filenames is such a drag.

  • http://sigt.net/archivo/7-habitos-de-los-usuarios-competentes-en-gnulinux.xhtml SigT

    7 hábitos de los usuarios competentes en GNU/Linux…

    En Royal HeHe2-ness! han escrito una entrada sobre siete hábitos que suelen tener los usuarios más competentes de GNU/Linux. Aunque yo lo hubiera generalizado a cualquier “administrador competente”, dentro del sistema operativo que fuese….

  • kewlhacker

    English?
    Stay on topic please, Bish

    Nice.
    By the way, pidof will show you proccess id of an application.

    [QUOTE]If that doesn’t work, you might want to restart your GUI using the CTRL-ALT-Backspace combo. Beware, that this will kill all your GUI apps currently running[/QUOTE]

    This will happen unless you programmed gnome to save your session.

    …zzzzzzzzCiao

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @kewlhacker, never thought one can do that, I better look it up.

    Thanks to everybody who commented and liked the article.

    Thanks to the ones who fixed my spelling and/or mistakes

    And as for the detractors, all I say, getting 100% approval rate is unheard of. Luckily it’s a minority, I am sure there are other stuff on this blog you would appreciate :)

  • http://BusinessCard tablet

    You mentioned linux on a business card cd/dvd. Where do you find a blank one to burn the iso? I have

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @tablet: The link to DSL version seems to be down (the one provided in the article), however here are some other resources:

    http://librenix.com/?inode=3223
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card

  • deep

    I’m a highly-effective Linux (and Unix) user, and I’ve been logging in as root for as long as I can remember, on both personal & production systems, and I have yet to make a mistake that wasn’t immediately correctable (i.e., no need to restore from backups, no downtime, etc).

    It’s a silly piece of advice, really, for two reasons:

    – it promotes carelessness, because sudo is perceived as a safety net.
    – people typically just give themselves access to *everything* via sudo.

    Personally, I would recommend learning Linux on a machine that you can afford to screw up, and *really* learn how to use Linux (i.e., login as root, don’t use sudo). When you’re forced to think about every command you type, you’ll eventually reach a point where you simply don’t make mistakes (assuming you proofread all CLI input beforehand).

  • http://www.nulynx.com/?p=10 Nulynx.com » Blog Archive » 7 More Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users

    [...] is a response to an article I read from Rami Taibah, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users. In it, he professes seven useful tips for new Linux users he wishes were impressed upon him when [...]

  • Jim

    You’re so right! Especially with 1, 3 and 5.

    1:
    Nobody needs permanent root access. At least, if you aren’t constantly configuring your system. Which you shouldn’t be, being a highly effective Linux user. It’s all about self control. Being root should be a rare, impressive experience. Not something you don’t care about any more. It’s this carelessness which leads to mistakes.

    3:
    I created an extra partition, mounted in /Data/. There I put /home/ and /usr/local/, pointing symlinks to them from the original positions.
    This is just because, over time, I had many self-compiled stuff in /usr/local/ (distros normally don’t install something there), which I’d also like to keep on upgrades. Maybe I’ll put this /Data/ partition on an NFS-server. I can only recommend such an extra partition!

    5:
    My first distro was SUSE – man, I’m glad I switched to Slackware! Yeah, I know what they say: No package management and such… (which isn’t even true – there’s just no automatic dependency checking). But everyone just try it, before mocking around!
    It’s so damn sexy. No stupid scripts sitting everywhere, no being forced to use graphical config tools. And, @pongscript: No automatic upgrades ;-)
    Perfect for learning how Linux works.

    For testing other distros, I use QEMU. I don’t really like Vmware.

  • Jim

    Ah, and about /usr/local/:
    stow/xstow is an excellent tool to organize your /usr/local/. Absolutely transparent and easy to use.

  • http://www.techenclave.com/open-source/7-habits-of-linux-power-users-109477.html#post795990 7 habits of linux power users – TechEnclave

    [...] Switching to Linux can be very daunting, most seasoned Linux users experienced that first hand. After all, at some point they were also ?noobs?. However, the Linux community has excelled in making the switch for beginners as easy as possible by providing guides, howtos, tweaks, and general advocacy articles. When I first made the switch 3 years ago, I found the community welcoming me with open hands on forums, IRC channels, and E-mail, I was surprised how helpful these penguins were! For this, I feel obliged to give back to the community that has always been there for me. To pass down the torch to newer Linux generations. Over here I compiled a list of 7 habits that I wish someone told me when I started out. I believe that getting into these habits will make the Linux experience more secure, convenient, educational, and ultimately more enjoyable. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Royal HeHe2-ness! [...]

  • http://www.meme.com/ Karl O. Pinc

    I like point 6.

    But you need a point 8. Install only the software provided by your Linux distro. The Linux distro does all the system’s integration for you, making sure every installed program works with every other installed program no matter what’s installed. Violate this rule if you’re an expert, but otherwise you’ll eventually experience Microsoft-like version incompatibilities and breakages, especially at upgrade time.

    One of LInux’s best features is that it just keeps working, even as you continually stay up to date with the latest software. The distros work hard to make this happen, if you get in the way be careful not to get run over.

  • Oshu

    Nice tips.

    Personally, I think number 1 should be “Never login to a graphical environment as root.” It is ok to login on the console as root, just not graphically. One reason you don’t mention for not logging in to a graphical desktop as root is that every single application on your desktop is now capable of trashing your machine. For example, if you run firefox and some page uses an exploit to run code on your machine, you are giving them a free pass to run it as root.

    Also, I take issue with number 5. It seems to me that distro hopping is huge among those new to linux. I’ve known people to keep trying different distros until all their hardware “just worked” after install. I always tell them they would have learned a lot more if they had taken some time to get their first distro working. Fact is, you learn a lot more when things are not working and you have to fix them. I say, pick a distro and learn everything you can about it before trying another one. Sometimes, the best distro to choose when you are beginning is the one used by your local linux expert friend. That way you can learn a lot and get help from your friend.

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @Karl: Point taken, will add it under “Our readers habits” or something, let me just aggregate them. Will be added in a few days :)

    @Oshu It’s nice to see you drop by again :) As for your first point, yes maybe I should add it in the title, but that can be understood from the context of the paragraph.

    As for the second point I did not mean by anyway to keep on going until you find the “just work” system. If you notice I encouraged using virtualization, a separate partition, or a whole different machine, all under the assumption that there is a base system to work on.

  • Oshu

    @Rami

    “As for the second point I did not mean by anyway to keep on going until you find the “just work” system. ”

    Oh, I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but I think a lot of new users might see it that way.

    Here is another tip: Buy a lot of books. Every crafty linux system administrator I know has a shelf or two of linux and related books. Best place to start if you ask me is Classic Shell Scripting (which will teach one all about the power of the command line as well as shell scripting).

  • http://www.2beornottobe.com/2008/04/habits-of-linux-users/ habits of linux users » 2 Be or Not to Be ?

    [...] work. I did find one article from IBM website earlier and this resembles a lot of it. Being a linux geek is a pride, and if you are a expert, show [...]

  • deep

    “Here is another tip: Buy a lot of books. Every crafty linux system administrator I know has a shelf or two of linux and related books. Best place to start if you ask me is Classic Shell Scripting (which will teach one all about the power of the command line as well as shell scripting).”

    Who’s got time for books? Every crafty *nix SysAdmin I know uses a combination of Google, online eBook subscriptions (e.g., O’Reilly Safari), man pages, and their own PDF/CHM collection of whitepapers/books/technical documentation..

  • http://honestape.net honest ape

    Well written article, as usual.

  • http://staplehead.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/7-consejos-para-usuarios-linux/ 7 consejos para usuarios Linux « Mundo Libre

    [...] Más detalles en el artículo original (en inglés): The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users [...]

  • http://www.odonnellweb.com/?p=4212 O’DonnellWeb – This is not a homeschooling blog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-04-17

    [...] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Royal HeHe2-ness! (tags: linux howto) [...]

  • http://blogs.linux.org.bd Linux Blog Aggregator

    Your blog has been added to Linux Blog Aggregator @ http://blogs.linux.org.bd :)

  • http://dimaka.net/7-polozhitelnyx-kachestv-nastoyashhego-linuksoida/ 7 ????????????? ??????? ?????????? ?????????? ? {dimaka}

    [...] ????. ?????????? ?? ????, ? ??? ??? ???????. [...]

  • http://www.windycitymike.com/2008/04/18/links-for-2008-04-18/ links for 2008-04-18

    [...] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users (tags: useful reference linux food4thought) [...]

  • http://Forceclose dajomu

    If you are running kde you can ctrl+ESC or maybe it was ctrl+alt+esc and you will be able to click on the program you want to kill.

  • Andy

    One think you may want to mention about SysRq (esp. to those who are having problems with it now): it has to be supported by your kernel to actually work. Many distros have disabled it by default.

    @deep:
    While the internet is one of the best resources for learning Linux, when you break networking and you don’t have a spare machine, nothing will save you quite like a Linux guide for dummies type of book. Just my $0.02 (plus it helps with learning the CLI, since you CAN’T copy/paste from a book!)

  • crb3

    Another way to fix a frozen-X crash: if you can shell into the machine from another machine (which means: the two machines are networked together, you have ssh-server running on the problem machine, you have its firewall set to allow ssh connections from the second machine, and, finally, the problem machine’s system has enough resources free that it can process your ssh login) you can su, ps -aux and kill or killall. Worst-case, if the program won’t even -KILL (nfs-connected programs can be stinkers like that), you can even shutdown -r NOW to avoid a dirty reboot.

    @peej: Write yourself up a script (bash, tcl, perl, python, whatever you’re comfy with) that, first, runs your favorite editor, then runs your choice of ftp tool to get that file uploaded. That’s how we do it around here: connect the dots, by piping together small programs, each of which does one thing and does it well, to get the functionality you want.

  • http://blog.cidandrade.pro.br/linux/os-sete-habitos-do-usuario-linux-eficiente/ Os sete hábitos do usuário Linux eficiente | Tecnologia da Informação – Desenvolvimento e Educação

    [...] blog de Rami Taibah publicou um interessante artigo sobre os 7 hábitos do usuário Linux eficiente. Eu aproveito para divulgar e destacar minha visão da lista ,com minhas [...]

  • http://www.newlinuxuser.com/what-are-your-linux-habits/ What are your Linux habits?

    [...] blog entry called the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users got my attention. Some of the things mentioned in the entry were taught to me by my friends and [...]

  • http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/links-saturday-9/ Links Saturday « Helpful Linux Tidbits

    [...] The 7 Habits of Effective Linux Users make some very good points about using Linux effectively and is really well written. [...]

  • http://techwatch.reviewk.com/ Desmond Haynes

    Thanks, super post. Of course it will be nice if you add some best practice for GUI.
    -Des
    Techwatch

  • http://www.marksanborn.net/links/weekend-link-roundup-week-5/ Weekend Link Roundup: Week 5

    [...] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users – An interesting article with 7 great tips for beginners learning Linux. Although the advice the author gives is very basic and common knowledge, he explains his advice very well. I think Linux beginners would get a lot of value out of reading this. [...]

  • http://security.tufala.net/index.php/2008/04/19/the-seven-habits-of-highly-effective-linux-user/ .::tufala.net:.. » The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Linux User

    [...] => The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users [...]

  • NoName

    …and when an X app hangs, first hit Ctrl-Alt-Esc so the pointer changes into a little skull-and-bons icon, then click the window you want to kill.

  • http://timelady.com/blog/2008/04/21/links-for-2008-04-21/ it’s about time» Blog Archive » links for 2008-04-21

    [...] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users | Royal HeHe2-ness! Switching to Linux can be very daunting. However, the Linux community has excelled in making the switch for beginners as easy as possible by providing guides, howtos, tweaks, and general advocacy articles. (tags: 2008 advice article articles best blog linux tips ubuntu howto guide hack reference usability) [...]

  • http://donwatkins.net/blog/?p=176 Don Watkins » Blog Archive » The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users

    [...] will make the Linux experience more secure, convenient, educational, and ultimately more enjoyable.read more | digg [...]

  • http://brenlla.blogaliza.org/2008/04/22/bos-habitos-de-uso-en-swl/ asennadas » Bos hábitos de uso en SwL

    [...] artigo fonte desta nova sinala e afonda nos seguintes puntos ofrecendo explicacións e moitas [...]

  • http://www.red91.com John

    good article, made me think how to best setup my system. totally agree with the keeping a journal idea, the amount of commands you need daily can be a nightmare to remember; i bung it all on my website. keep up the good work and well done to this!

  • http://teapotphilosopher.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/kde4-kubuntu-beta/ KDE4 Kubuntu Beta « Teapot Philosopher

    [...] should check out The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users. It’s pretty good for the power user, but the only one I would recommend to the average user [...]

  • maxi

    nice summary,

    sudo uninstall vista…..

    lol

  • http://bonar.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/7-good-tips-for-new-linux-user/ 7 Good Tips For New Linux User « Mai Blogs?

    [...] the rest tips you can get from Rami Taibah in his blog. [...]

  • http://housebaked.zzl.org/ Debian User

    Some good points, I found myself using all of them lol.

    I used to use QEMU for my virtual OS’es, but have found VirtualBox instead (which is also free btw) and it’s MUCH faster, has a nice (corporate-like) gui-setup to use etc.

  • http://paso.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/le-7-abitudini-utenti-linux/ Le 7 buone abitudini degli utenti Linux « Paso’s BloG

    [...] [articolo completo (in inglese): hehe2.net] [...]

  • chocbar31

    Alternate homes, alternate Distro’s, effective habits. I have been using Ubuntu since ’04. Even without effective gaming, I have not been able to look back on M$ products. I am a NetPanzer fool now anyway! Linux is clean and lets you utilize the I-net without lockups, and you can even kill all failed apps without having to reboot. Yeah, I’d say Linux is addictive!

  • http://darkm1nd.net/?p=17 Security News – Tools – Tutorials and more … » Blog Archive » Warning: Hardy Heron May Cause Linux Addiction

    [...] Avoid When You’re Installing Linux Software,” while on Royal HeHe2-ness there’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users” — both helpful guides for making the best use of a Linux guru’s [...]

  • Joe

    When I hit ctrl+alt+esc my cursor turns into a little cross hair and kills whatever I click with it. Is this the same as Force Quit?

    -using PCLinuxOS and loving it!

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @Joe I am assuming your KDE right? Well yes that’s pretty much what force quit is :)

  • http://0ddn1x.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/linux-good-habits/ Linux: good habits « 0ddn1x: tricks with *nix

    [...] Linux: good habits Filed under: Linux — 0ddn1x @ 2008-05-04 20:20:22 +0000 http://hehe2.net/linux-general/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-linux-users/ [...]

  • http://www.boredquiz.com Quiz

    I agree with never using root with your GUI. Welcome the rootkits to your front yard if you do

  • http://miladinoski.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/7te-naviki-na-visoko-efektivnite-linux-korisnici/ 7?? ?????? ?? ?????? ??????????? Linux ????????? « What am I doing

    [...] 7?? ?????? ?? ?????? ??????????? Linux ????????? 6 05 2008 ??? ?? ? ??? ????, ???  ? ???? ?????? ?? ?????????? ?? ????????? ???? ?? Rami Taibah ??????? ?? ???? ??????. [...]

  • http://www.10dailythings.com/2008/05/10/linux-the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-linux-users/ Linux: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users – 10 Daily Things

    [...] Read more >>> Tags: Computing, Linux [...]

  • http://www.justanswers.org.ua articles

    articles…

    Hi there. It’s very interesting for me as traveler….

  • http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~shieldga gareth

    I love the article. However, I’m a grammar stickler, and you should change your “it’s” to “its” where it is possessive:

    “Move /home to it’s own partition” should be “Move /home to its own partition”

  • http://www.compwrite.com zeek

    i always do most of these ‘habits’

  • http://tecnologic.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/os-sete-habitos-do-usuario-linux-eficiente/ Os sete hábitos do usuário Linux eficiente « [tecno-logic]

    [...] Linux eficiente, publicados no blog do Cid Andrade. Versão “inspiradora” em inglês aqui. – 1. Nunca permanecer logado como [...]

  • http://professorhugo.com.br/blog/?p=18 Professor Hugo » Os sete hábitos do usuário Linux eficiente

    [...] O blog de Rami Taibah publicou um interessante artigo sobre os 7 hábitos do usuário Linux eficiente. [...]

  • peter

    4-Proper Crash Management.
    Rami, thx for your education there. For me there is one logical step missing in your list. When applying step 4, and subsequently 2&3, how does one return to the original GUI session?
    /peter

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    Dear Peter, thanks for your dropping by. You can return to the GUI session by hitting ctrl-alt-f7 :)

  • http://www.blaos.com/7-habitos-de-los-usuarios-competentes-en-gnulinux/ 7 habitos de los usuarios competentes en GNU/Linux | blaos!

    [...] RoyalHeHE2 Traducido por [...]

  • http://casidiablo.net/10-tips-productividad-linux/ 10 hábitos de productividad en Linux

    [...] entrada es un merge|free translate|improve de un par de artículos bastante interesantes, y con conscentimiento de los autores. Fin del articulo Esta entrada fue escrita por [...]

  • http://www.maty1206linuxeando.com/archives/1268 10 hábitos de productividad en Linux

    [...] y exprimir su sistema operativo. Esta entrada es un merge|free translate|improve de un par de artículos bastante interesantes, y con conscentimiento de los [...]

  • Mitchell

    Good article! I am just starting with Ubuntu myself, I can definitely see a lot of the things you’ve mentioned helping me a lot.

  • http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=248 Video: ‘Your Linux is ready’ | Linux and Open Source | TechRepublic.com

    [...] 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users [...]

  • http://hehe2.net/linux-general/9-linux-myth-debunked/ 9 Linux Myth Debunked | Bringing Linux to the Masses

    [...] Hello Diggers! If you enjoyed this article, then I would recommend to also read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users and Etymology of A Distro. Enjoy! When it comes to Linux there are 3 kinds of people, those who [...]

  • http://www.blaos.com/tecnologia/linux/7-habitos-de-los-usuarios-competentes-en-gnulinux/ blaos! » Blog Archive » 7 habitos de los usuarios competentes en GNU/Linux

    [...] RoyalHeHE2 Traducido por [...]

  • http://miladinoski.trap17.com/archives/7te-naviki-na-visoko-efektivnite-linux-korisnici 7?? ?????? ?? ?????? ??????????? Linux ?????????

    [...] ??? ?? ? ??? ????, ???  ? ???? ?????? ?? ?????????? ?? ????????? ???? ?? Rami Taibah ??????? ?? ???? ??????. [...]

  • http://dakotux.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/articles-collection-of-apr08/ Articles Collection of Apr’08 « Dako-Tux

    [...] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users [...]

  • http://unmundolibre.es/2008/04/17/7-consejos-para-usuarios-linux/ 7 consejos para usuarios Linux | Un Mundo Libre

    [...] Más detalles en el artículo original (en inglés): The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users [...]

  • http://www.wadafak.com/entretenimiento/humor-curiosidades/7-habitos-de-los-usuarios-competentes-en-gnulinux/ 7 habitos de los usuarios competentes en GNU/Linux | Wadafak!

    [...] RoyalHeHE2 Traducido por SigT] Miscelaneos Escrito por Miguel Zegarra Tags: linux, listado, Sistemas [...]

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