Efficient Linux at the CLI (Interview)

This week we’re talking to Daniel J. Barrett, author of Efficient Linux at the Command Line as well as many other books. Daniel has a PhD and has been teaching and writing about Linux for more than 30 years (almost 40!). So we invited Dan to join us on the show to talk about efficient ways to use Linux. He teaches us about combining commands, re-running commands, $CDPATH hacks, and more.

Leave us a comment

Changelog++ members save 5 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at developer.squareup.com to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.
• Changelog News – A podcast+newsletter combo that’s brief, entertaining & always on-point. Subscribe today.
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

Featuring:

• Daniel J. Barrett – LinkedIn, Website
• Adam Stacoviak – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website
• Jerod Santo – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn

Show Notes:

• Efficient Linux at the Command Line
• Daniel’s books
• Dan on O’Reilly
• Cold Ice Cream & Hot Kisses

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Timestamps:

(00:00) - This week on The Changelog
(00:58) - Sponsor: Square
(03:52) - Start the show!
(05:56) - Distro of choice
(07:39) - Linux only?
(08:32) - There are so many efficiency gains
(11:41) - Minimum learning curve
(14:25) - Command substitution
(17:01) - Process substitution
(22:22) - Which
(25:05) - $CDPATH
(29:49) - Sponsor: Changelog News
(31:28) - I can see that biting me
(32:49) - Challenge to move to a new machine
(35:22) - Bash
(42:41) - Explaining homebrew's install command
(48:41) - Dan shares a riddle
(52:24) - ChatGPT and learning Linux
(54:10) - ChatGPT package hallucination
(56:25) - There's a batter way
(1:02:43) - Emacs
(1:05:19) - Directory stack
(1:10:12) - I'd watch videos of Dan
(1:15:02) - Teaser for future books
(1:16:30) - Cold Ice Cream & Hot Kisses
(1:18:15) - Where to buy the books
(1:20:50) - Up next