UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm a total *nix newb so I really could use some help!

I plan on running a cron job on my server that deletes some files and then backs up and emails the website for archival purposes.

Before I get in too deep I'd like to remove some unnecessary files that phpThumb creates. I'm not sure why but when phpThumb creates thumbnails and caches them it also creates an extenion-less copy of the source file and names it phpThumb* (ie. phpThumbdcvgh, phpThumbsdgh, phpThumbsgd). I have no need for them because within the cache directory there is another directory called source that caches the source files (with a useful .jpeg extension no less!).

I've never scripted anything for a *nix system before - the closest I've come is to installing Ubuntu once.

Looking around the net this is what I've got for a script so far. Please let me know what it would do. Most importantly if it would actually delete the many phpThumb files. I'm not sure if *nix systems use an asterisk the way I believe it would.

Code:

find /public_html/cache -exec rm -f {phpThumb*} \;

Thanks for any help!

BTW - anyone have any links to Linux for beginners? It's something I'd really like to learn but it's so foreign to me coming from Window's simplicity. What! I can't double-click to install a program?!

Code:

find /public_html/cache -name 'phpThumb*'  -exec rm -f {} \;

will do what you want. This code assumes there are no directories under ./cache with
phpThumb* filenames

First things first. What Linux are we talking about? What kind of access do you have? Do you have shell access? If so, with what (telnet/ssh)? What's the absolute path (not the one relative to the document root) on the server to those cached files?

Comparing Windows to Linux is like comparing a car to a motorbike. Both use roads, but that's where the similarity ends. Just because you're used to something doesn't mean it's easy.
And why should anyone have to hunt endlessly for programs online, and then be asked the same questions again and again for different programs, when there's a nifty feature called Software Repository?

Thanks, Jim!

I'm not exactly sure what Linux variant the server is on. I've been able to find out it's "Linux" with kernel 2.6.18-164.2.1.el 5.028stab066.7 through cPanel. I have SSH shell access (I think since cPanel has a tab for it) but I've only used FTP so far. Would the absolute path be something like /home/stickyup/? Stickyup being the account name my host gave me.

To those who know it that tells us that it's Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Someone more experienced with it than me might even find out the exact patch level, but that's irrelevant for your question.
Did jim's command work? If so, you've already got the absolute path. Otherwise, find out if the SSH access works, and try this:

Code:

cd ~/public_html/
pwd

The output from pwd should be the absolute path to the public_html directory.