Linux = freedom : part 1

I finished the programming assignment I gave for myself and realized that I really needed to update my blog.

so I just typed into the console, "firefox www.abstract-code.blogspot.com"

and whoop, there I was!

If I was on Windows, I'd have to have double-clicked on firefox, go to my homepage, and then type in my webpage. This might have meant minimizing whatever I was doing at the time, which takes more precious seconds.

People complain about computers trapping them into working more and having less free time to do what they need. However, I don't think the computer is the culprit, Well, it is, but it's not the system itself so much as it is people's unwillingness to seek out and learn how to free themselves of the shackles technology has placed on us.

Technology is created to free our lives. Unfortunately, so many people feel one must be truly gifted to understand and use technology effectively, that they settle for less useful, but more intuitive versions of it, for various reasons. They're not happy, but they feel a need to use it, so they stick with it.

I wasn't much of an exception. While I had access to DOS as a kid, I never used it much. A GUI where I could click around in was a lot simpler, and my own personal reasons for using Windows for so long was because I was never exposed to anything different. My exposure to linux came in college, where so many people used it that I decided to give it a shot. I played with it for awhile, then went back to Windows.

But Windows is very limiting in its power. It's useful, but I feel that I can do more in linux with a few basic commands than I ever was able to in windows.

For example

cd folder1 ; mkdir folder2 ; cd folder2 ; mkdir folder3 ; cd folder3; touch file.txt ;

is a series of commands goes into a folder, makes a folder, goes into that folder, makes another folder, goes into it, and then creates a text file.

There's another way to do this

such as

mkdir folder1 ; mkdir folder1/folder2; mkdir folder1/folder2/folder3; touch folder1/folder2/folder3/file.txt

that seems to be faster, and accomplishes the same thing. Except that you're not really moving anywhere in the system (to do anything in windows, it seems, you have to be in that location physically). Being able to do this is pretty amazing to me because it's a lot faster and a lot less clicking. I feel like I'm actually in control.