Episode: 720
Title: HPR0720: CLI Magic
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0720/hpr0720.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 01:28:12

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Hi everyone, this is Prasu. I'm sitting here at the Indian Olympics, and I'm talking to
Mark, who is also known as Delta Ray in the IRC. And well, you do a lot of things. So,
first of all, say hi to everyone. Hi everyone. Thank you. So, the first thing that I really wanted
to talk to you about was your command line talk that you gave. It's called a command line magic,
or something like that, and when you tell me how that kind of got started, or what that is.
Well, command line magic is a Twitter and identity feed, but I post little tips and tricks
to try to encourage people to delve into the command line more than they usually do. I always
felt, and I've been guilty of this, too, for one time, where, you know, I send you the command line,
and I just run CD or L.S. and simple commands, and you look at the man page, you're like,
oh, there's all this other stuff I could do, but I don't know what to do with it, and you always see people
using wireless and wireless, but you think that it's something that's complex, and they're always
using examples that are like toolbar, and you don't know how to apply it to your daily life. So,
what I wanted to do was post real things that I'm doing, like system administration type tasks,
because that's what I do in my life. I say I'm a system administrator at 487,
because I actually, an assistant at a company called Kirk Medical, and then at night,
I run a web-host company, so I, you know, am on call two times over, and sometimes it's pretty interesting
the situations I run to, as far as responsibility goes. So, whenever I come across something
that I'm doing, but I think it's interesting, I try to engineer it a little bit,
and then post it to feed with a short description. And, you know, since Twitter and Identical
are limited to 140 characters, I have to sometimes come up with creative ways of
making it all fit, or filter out some stuff. It's really cool actually that you can
come up with commands that are as cool as the ones that you're coming up with, and useful
that are only 140 characters. So, I'm curious, I mean, does anyone even use the
command line anymore? I mean, come on, where is that fancy, pretty gooey?
Now, what do we need it for? Well, that's one of the things that I actually start out
on my talk with, is to talk about why the command line still relevant in 2011,
2010, you know, it's like, I've given this talk at OLS, and now India, I'm like this,
and it's funny how, you know, I start building up my presentation, you know, preparing
and so on. And these things start popping up in the environment like before OLS,
the VMware just added a command line interface for ESX, and, you know, people were talking
about PowerShell and Windows and how it was catching on, and then at OLS, we actually
had these one external that was put in our back, so it was a command line specific issue.
And, you know, and I'm just like, well, obviously there's still an interest in the
command line, and it seems to be growing back because people aren't finding functionality
that they need in gooey. You know, I see people on Twitter when I try and
find new people to follow so that they can follow the command line fees, I search for
command line, I search for bad, and I come across people who are like, thanks up like,
I'm set up for the gooey, I'm going back to the command line.
And it isn't only people who are hardcore geeks, I think it's just people who are like,
I get more out of the command line because I can do things in large batch jobs, or, you know,
I don't have to worry about the interface freezing off or the interface changing,
or something like that, so I think it's very still relevant. It's growing.
Yeah.
I totally agree. I mean, I still find myself, sometimes I have to remind myself to do
something in the gooey just so that when someone looking over my shoulder wants to know
how to do something on KDE or something, I'll know how to do it, because it's like,
sometimes I just don't even want to be bothered with it, you know, so, yeah, I think it's a really
relevant thing.
So your other job is, well, okay, so one of your other jobs is
Cicero.org, right? What is that?
Cicero, well, Cicero.com.
I mean, I said Cicero.org was how it started. I started in my dorm room back in 97,
and it was just some servers that would run all the time while asleep, and, you know,
back to the night light.
And I had some friends on there, and people started asking for a count.
The reason Cicero is a place for me to host a website that I was managing called the
Philip Glass Library.
And I was really into Philip Glass at the time, and back when fan sites were popular,
you know, it was all the things to do, but eventually I started to become more interested
in extra managing the server, and I started learning Linux a lot more, and it just grew
and grew, and I started adding new features to Cicero, and learned a lot about Apache
and mail servers, and I also had a job at an ISP at the time, which is, so that, you know,
I learned from some really great guys there who works at the university and pass along
from two ways that I carry along to this day, and so Cicero grew out of, you know,
kind of a nonprofit type of idealism and community idealism in 2004.
We turned into a .com.
That was after trying to acquire the Cicero.com domain from a domain slaughter.
My wife, she tricked the domain slaughter into telling us the domain for half the price.
So we got that, and we formed a corporation and grew from there.
I've been so busy a whole lot of times that it's been hard to make Cicero grow at the rate
that it really should, you know, I get high-tracked by other projects.
I've been the leader of our local Linux Cicero's group, and I also started this website
called Bloomingpedia, which is a city-weekly for Bloomington.
At one point, it was the second largest week in the United States for Cicero,
and I have some harsh city-weeks that come along.
And, you know, I get ways involved with ways and many things for my own good,
but I always find ways to make the command-line part of it.
It's the part of what I'm doing.
So the other thing that you're doing is that you actually help to put together this festival.
So how do you feel?
I mean, the final keynote is going on right now.
So coming to a close, what's your, how are you doing?
I think it's going very smoothly.
Yeah, we had some people cancel, but I imagine that goes with every kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Lord D and Michael Shooties has been involved with Ohio Linux Fest.
Michael more than Matt.
So, I mean, having that connection there and getting people to help us from Ohio Linux Fest
from a big health and organizing the whole thing.
It also came about because I use Linux Fest,
which is Indiana University of Linux Fest.
I actually got started. It's all the way back in 1998.
Well, I actually attended that first one when I was working at Keven Networking,
the ICS working for, we had a table there.
And so, at the time, that was actually one of the first Linux Fests in the country.
But it was never really pushed or beyond, you know, the university environment
and their local community.
And we only had about like 100 or 150 people every year.
And so, that went until 2008, I think, but had 10 years in existence.
And then after it, it holded, and they tried not to do it anymore.
We were a few of us were talking about like, oh, we'd like to have a Linux Fest.
I talked to Michael at the time, he registered Indiana Linux at work.
And then he kind of, I wasn't sure, you know, it was kind of unclear who was going to spearhead the whole thing.
Right.
And we really needed somebody to just, you know, drive it like a train.
Yeah.
And that person was Lord D and he just came around.
And just get a confidence.
Yeah, I want to get a beat.
And, you know, now, he has his like, oh, my gosh, I'm so tired.
Yeah.
You know, I had no idea how much was involved.
Yeah, yeah.
You think it's something that's kind of easy, but then it's like all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes.
Yeah.
And you have much more appreciation for conference people than the volunteer and her organizers.
Yeah.
And also, you know, all the times that I wrote to a conference organizer,
and I didn't understand why they didn't write me back right away.
I totally understand.
Well, I think, yeah, I have to agree.
It came off really, really nicely.
It felt like a real fest.
It had lots of people.
It had really great talks.
I've learned a lot here.
So, yeah, I mean, you guys did a really nice job.
Once I got here, I'm not sure where it happens or not.
A lot of times, conferences and festivals, they have something unique that's tied to that specific festival.
Like that because of the tradition.
Right.
And like that.
I'm wondering if anything like that has happened.
Right, yeah.
I'll see you next year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, develop over time, I guess.
And actually, speaking of how you had the Indian Olympics bus here back in 1998 or whatever,
or whether they were calling it, you told me about it.
And you actually even showed me something else that came from, I guess, Bloomington,
where this CD came out of.
Oh, the CD?
Yeah.
This was stored behind that again.
Okay.
So, one of the things that I wanted to talk a little bit about at ILS was the fact that
there's so much in Indiana that's tied to Linux.
It's amazing that there hasn't been a festival before.
There's, you know, I mean, there's a lot of you like this.
And maybe a few other events.
But there hasn't been as strong as an event.
The Gample 1.0 CD actually was shipped worldwide from Bloomington, Indiana.
That's crazy.
I actually went into the guy's house.
This was back in 1998.
The dance is such a cornerstone of the open source desktop that it's a pretty essential,
you know, it's like an artist back now.
It's like a huge thing.
I didn't really realize that until he said that.
I was like, well, Gimp is Gimp, right?
But then of course, and everyone knows in the back of their mind, at least.
The GK is the guest toolkit.
Right.
And, you know, in GK, we get known, we get everything known.
I mean, you know, I'm sure the KTV people are going to have a thing.
Hey, what's that?
You can't deny that.
I mean, I honestly didn't use it myself.
But anybody who is cool, anybody who is using open source desktop, they are using something, you know.
Okay.
They know the history.
We're called QC, you know, open and close.
They know that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So looking back, we're a lot going on.
And Gimp was a huge central part of that.
I suppose the guy who made them, he made a company called Loverworks.
And you can actually, if you turn down the Loverworks from the Pimple and Klinosi online, you'll find this story.
So Loverworks was his company.
And I don't know whether it had anything to do with Lover's, I mean, it has to do with Lover's the icon of talent.
Right.
So I don't know where it has anything to do with that's how Lover's came about.
Right.
You know, somebody would have to do some archery.
Yeah.
So anyways, he had this company called Loverworks.
It was Scott Groh, Grohning.
I think I have his name this pronounce you.
So when he had this company, Loverworks, he put here the CD for Gimp with help from people on the Gimp's Lover team.
And then it got made in Loverworks.
And then shipped to Worldwide School of Legends.
So that was an outing.
And I've never seen the announcement on Flash, or something like.
Yeah.
Loverworks in Indiana, I lived there.
Yeah.
It was amazing.
So I went over the guy's house.
He lives in Northern Loverworks.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's really, really cool.
And it was really cool to see that disc.
That's, there's one thing.
He comes to Indiana.
And it was especially to see the old, cool stuff.
And lots of great talks.
I can't, can't reiterate enough how good some of these talks were.
I really, really did learn a lot.
I think you're talking to me.
No problem.
Thank you for listening to Half of all the radio.
H3R was spotted by Carol.net.
We'll head on over to QA.
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