Questions tagged [coreutils]
formally GNU Coreutils is a set of basic utilities from text, files and shell utilities. Most of the Unix-like OS contains this package. Question about any of the utilities of the coreutils should use this tag.
48
questions
598
votes
25
answers
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How to show the transfer progress and speed when copying files with cp?
Otherwise, is there any alternative command line utility that can achieve this?
477
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7
answers
1.3m
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What does "cp: omitting directory" mean?
I've issued the following command:
sudo cp ~/Transfers/ZendFramework-1.11.4-minimal/library/Zend/* ~/public_html/cmsk.dev/library/
When I do this, I start getting the following messages:
cp: ...
214
votes
8
answers
420k
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Is there a way to create multiple directories at once with mkdir?
If I wanted to create multiple directories (on the same level) and then feed it a comma seperated list of directory names (or something to that effect)?
92
votes
5
answers
96k
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Difference between 'dir' and 'ls' terminal commands?
I've been trying to find the difference between using the dir and ls commands in terminal. I know ls is the traditional UNIX method of viewing the files in a directory, and that dir is the windows ...
31
votes
4
answers
6k
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Why wouldn't the `which` command work for `cd`? I can't find the executable for `cd` either!
I tried which cd and it didn't give a path but instead returned the exit code 1 (checked with echo $?). The coreutil cd itself is working, so the executable should be there, right? I also ran a find ...
17
votes
4
answers
6k
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Use sleep with minutes and seconds
I know how to use sleep 5m for 5 minutes.
How would I use it for say 7 mins 30 seconds?
13
votes
4
answers
8k
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How can I have mkdir cd into the newly-created directory? [duplicate]
Frequently, I type these commands in bash:
mkdir something
cd something
I almost never do this:
mkdir something
ls # something in the current directory, not ./something/
And never this:
mkdir ...
12
votes
1
answer
859
views
Understanding output of command: date -d "12:24 <lower-case-alphabet>"
Can someone please help me understand why adding any lower-case-alphabet (a-z) as below makes a difference in date -d output and what do these letters in that command mean?
wip$ date -d "12:24 a&...
10
votes
2
answers
13k
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lint: command not found
Does Ubuntu have a lint utility? How is it installed?
In computer programming, lint is a Unix utility..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lint_%28software%29
thufir@mordor:~$
thufir@mordor:~$ gcc ...
9
votes
1
answer
7k
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How to upgrade coreutils from 8.21 to 8.24 in Linux Ubuntu 14.04?
I want to use the 'progress' status option with dd which is available with coreutils 8.24 up. Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty) has coreutils 8.21 and the current (stable) release for coreutils is >8.24.
I wish ...
8
votes
5
answers
16k
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how do I check coreutils version?
How do i check the version of coreutils? gnu coreutils says they are at version 5. Im sure Ubuntu is a variation on that. I tried:
info coreutils
File: coreutils.info, Node: coreutils invocation, ...
8
votes
2
answers
9k
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What does `ls --author` mean?
What exactly means
ls --author
It really returns writer of a file or owner? How to set author for a file? I have to implement this part (ls --author), so need to know what exactly it is.
8
votes
2
answers
844
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touch -t errors on last Sundays of March
touch -t is giving me "invalid date format" errors if the date code represents 2:00:00AM through 2:59:59AM on the last Sunday in March of any year (I've checked 2023,2014,2016,2018). The ...
6
votes
1
answer
1k
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Head with a weird behavior
I have downloaded a warc file from Common Crawl in Ubuntu 18.04. After decompressing it with gzip, I've tried to get a segment of the file using head. I first tried:
head -c 29 CC-MAIN-20210620114611-...
6
votes
4
answers
15k
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`rm -rf ` and `rm -r` have the same results
Bear in mind that I just learning bash so please explain in moderate terms.
rm -rf and rm -r appear to do the same thing. The tutorial (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Beginners/BashScripting) ...
6
votes
2
answers
12k
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how to make a static binary of coreutils?
I'm trying to make a static binary of rm, so I tried compiling coreutils with
configure; make SHARED=0 CC='gcc -static'; make install
but I keep running into errors.
First make complains about c99 ...
5
votes
2
answers
544
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rm -I to prevent accidental rm
I just created alias rm="rm -I" to prevent from accidental rm command.
-I prompt once before removing more than three files, or when removing recursively.
Less intrusive than -i, while ...
4
votes
2
answers
293
views
multiple forms of sum in core utilities
Upon reading GNU Core Utilities - Wikipedia, I find multiple sum
me@alpha:~$ cksum nohup.out
4104911401 101860700 nohup.out
me@alpha:~$ b2sum nohup.out
...
4
votes
3
answers
4k
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Why is /bin/true such a large file? How would I find the source code?
I just found out about /bin/true yesterday. I'm not a bash power user by any means, but I decided to check it out. I was surprised to find that it is a 22K file (Ubuntu 12.04), and not one of the ...
3
votes
1
answer
4k
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how to compile the sorcecode of the offical ls.c source code?
I downloaded the official ls.c source code and tried to compile it with gcc. The problem was that the gcc showed me a lot of errors.
$ gcc ls.c -o ls
ls.c:38:20: fatal error: config.h:
I did fix a ...
3
votes
1
answer
362
views
Bash sort lines starting with punctuation in non-dictionary order
I have a file containing lines, some of which start with a ! character, some with a ? character, and some with a space ( ) character. The second character is always a letter of the alphabet.
When I ...
3
votes
1
answer
3k
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What is the difference between cut’s -b and -c option?
I've searched online for examples, went through the reference manual of the cut command and tested it myself and remain unsure about the -b flag. There aren't any clear examples as to how the cut -b ...
3
votes
2
answers
21k
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How can I change the default date format (using LC_TIME)?
How do I change the format of date command by modifying LC_TIME in locale?
Currently the day of month uses %e format. I need it to be displayed in %d format.
Below is the Current Format:
#date
Thu ...
3
votes
1
answer
2k
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Copying multiple files with progress
I want to be able to copy multiple files from multiple USB flash disks at the same time, being able to see current transfer rate of each simultaneously. It is part of performance testing for USB port ...
2
votes
2
answers
1k
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Is it possible to uninstall the 'programs' rm, cp and mv from the system?
I can't see how this would be useful, but I'm really interested.
Is it possible to uninstall the programs rm, cp and mv?
2
votes
1
answer
5k
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Install env command
I want to use env, but Ubuntu tells me it is not installed. If I try to install it, Ubuntu tells me there is nothing to do. How to fix this?
$ env
The program 'env' is currently not installed. You ...
2
votes
1
answer
252
views
Why is test --help not working?
My Ubuntu is working good.
$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-11.1.0ubuntu4-noarch:printing-11.1.0ubuntu4-noarch:security-11.1.0ubuntu4-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 22.04.1 ...
2
votes
1
answer
6k
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How to replace GNU core utilities with Busybox
I was wondering: is it possible to replace the GNU coreutils with Busybox in Ubuntu? Is that safe? Could I replace something else (like binutils and bash) with Busybox? How much free disk space would ...
2
votes
1
answer
6k
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I can't get the `cp` command to work
In the terminal, when I issue the cp command, it states:
The program 'cp' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt-get install coreutils
But when I try to install it, I get the ...
1
vote
2
answers
330
views
rm file '??q:q '
I accidently created a file named ??q:q and i can't remove it.
rm '??q:q' or rm '\?\?q\:q' (To escape the ?) says No such file or directory
Another interesting thing:
in ls it shows the name as ??q:...
1
vote
1
answer
2k
views
Does mv ignore the letter case by default?
I'm trying to change only the case in the filename and getting the error:
ayakovlev@ubuntu:~/host$ mv crc32.hpp CRC32.hpp
mv: ‘crc32.hpp’ and ‘CRC32.hpp’ are the same file
Is it any setting ...
1
vote
1
answer
4k
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How can I install a debug build for coreutils?
I am trying to install the debug build for coreutils package which is not available.
I also went through this link and followed all steps but I still can't see a debug package for coreutils on doing ...
1
vote
1
answer
2k
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How to repair missing GPG public keys for packages
Earlier today I was removing VirtualBox, and when removing its public key, I accidentally instead of putting the key ID, put the fingerprint:
sudo apt-key del 7B0F AB3A 13B9 0743 5925 D9C9 5442 2A4B ...
1
vote
1
answer
285
views
Change TimeStamp display in terminal
When I do a ls -al the timestamp display is Month date time - would like it to be yy/mm/dd or just know WHERE to modify this?
I also cannot edit dconf-editor. - that shows %l:%M %p when I try to ...
1
vote
1
answer
315
views
Why does `/usr/bin/time` report the wrong exit status with format `%x` in case of SIGABRT?
I'm using /usr/bin/time to report information about a set of benchmarks I'm running. The interesting data points are runtime, memory usage and the exit status. This works fine except when the ...
0
votes
2
answers
602
views
where is the source code for the which command?
I looked around in coreutils, and did sudo apt-cache search which
I also looked at the manpages of which, I didn't find it.
I'd like to add an argument for listing dependencies to the executable, I ...
0
votes
1
answer
342
views
why is /bin/ls linking to libpthread?
so strange, is ls multi-threaded somehow? what could ls possibly need libpthread for?
ldd /bin/ls
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffff7fce000)
libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so....
0
votes
2
answers
1k
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"which alias" and "whereis alias" doesn't return anything [duplicate]
I recently installed Ubuntu 20.04. I am unable to find the alias command. When I enter which alias I get nothing back. Same with whereis alias.
0
votes
3
answers
999
views
How to get number of phy / logical cores?
There are a lot of questions about number of cores, e.g. , but none give the correct logical cores AFAIK.
The best thing I can think of, is calculating myself using the following formulas:
Physical ...
0
votes
2
answers
198
views
mesg return 'is y'
Upon issuing 'mesg'
me@alpha:~$ mesg
is y
The manual states
NAME
mesg - display (or do not display) messages from other users
Does this means that someone hacked my machine and leave a ...
0
votes
1
answer
93
views
Different versions of `sync` tool
There are two man pages about the sync tool:
(1) http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/sync.1.html
NAME
sync - Synchronize cached writes to persistent storage
SYNOPSIS top
...
0
votes
1
answer
90
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How to fix cursed machine with broken recovery mode and broken GNOME
Recovery mode shows a screen that apparently can't find dpkg/apt/any coreutil executables: here, GNOME crashes after login attempt with correct password, systemctl status gdm shows:
Nov 02 16:38:19 (...
0
votes
1
answer
123
views
Inconsistence between CLI command and nautilus units
So it seems nautilus/Files and other software are using the SI units to display file size for some time now, in ubuntu.
But this is rather inconsistent with cli command like ls, du,and df that still ...
0
votes
1
answer
76
views
Please explain the copy backup types
The following options are available for the --backup option:
none, off never make backups (even if --backup is given)
numbered, t make numbered backups
existing, nil numbered if ...
0
votes
1
answer
411
views
realpath API returns error 22(Invalid arg) or 38(function not implemented) on latest Ubuntu 21.04 & other latest linux flavours
sachin@sachin:~$ cat 1.c
#include <limits.h> /* PATH_MAX */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <errno.h>
void main(void) {
char *buf=NULL;
char *res =...
0
votes
0
answers
119
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users and who return no usernames
Strange thing happened today. I went to look up who was currently logged in on a box using the users command and it returned nothing. It didn't even return my username. The particulars are below. I am ...
0
votes
0
answers
2k
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Ubuntu Cannot reinstall coreutils
I deleted the usr/bin/env file in my Ubuntu16.04 by mistake. Everytime i try to reinstall coreutils with this command:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall coreutils, i get this error:
Reinstallation of ...
-1
votes
1
answer
9k
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cp: invalid option -- '/' [closed]
I am trying to recover my encrypted folder by using ubuntu live cd, I have done all the steps now all I want to do is to copy my /tmp/ecryptfs.bM59alvG to /home/ubuntu/myfolder directory.
I am using ...