UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

okay, im having some trouble. Go ahead, call me a retard, but i keep getting stuck. Suppose i want to open a Picture of Jesus(for the sake of simplicity) using unix. I type:

open Desktop/Pictures/Jesus.jpg

It opens, and its all well and good. But, suppose i want to open a picture called Joe Average. i type:

open Desktop/Pictures/Joe Average.jpg

and it wont let me. It just says something along the lines of 'Desktop/Pictures/Joe does not exist.' But the thing is, i didnt want a file called 'Joe'. I wanted 'Joe Average.jpg'. Why cant i use spaces?

how about you type as follows:

open "Desktop/Pictures/Joe Average.jpg"

or you can escape the spaces like:
/path/to/file/file\ with\ spaces

unless you quote a line with spaces, Unix will see that as a new argument...

One of the things that UNIX is cussed for is its Literal translation of your command line entries.


Many "why I hate unix" books have been published by folks who dont know what they are doing and blame their stupidity on the OS, not where it belongs. one book I found at a local store listed many things that users were upset about 99% of which were b/c they rushed it or didnt know what they were doing...

My advice is be careful and take your time if you have a series of commands that are intricate.... No points for messing it up. :P

The basic concept of UNIX is to assume that you know what you are doing... unlike Windows that questions everything you do...

Many folks are used to the hand holding of Windows and expect the same in UNIX...not so.




Be wary of commands where you use a * hehe it can mean you have to reload the OS....

also if you are using bash, or anothershell with autocompletion of commands, you can just use the tab key (in bash) once youve typed the first few letters of the filename with spaces in it.