Practical UNIX

Traveling in the Land of UNIX

UNIX Adventure Vocabulary Several UNIX terms are consistent with an adventure/quest theme. Background processes are called daemons. You may have to kill your child processes, lest they become zombies. You might not be able to access a file because it has a bad magic number.

Working with UNIX is like playing an adventure game where you travel through unknown terrain, engage in battles, and pick up magic talismans and incantations. Seasoned travelers can use their bag of tricks to prosper, while newcomers are hard-pressed to just stay alive. People adept at UNIX are like wizards that can pull magic command lines out of the air and accomplish in a few keystrokes what otherwise might require hours of programming.