Part A: Now that you have completed practice labs and lessons, respond to the following questions:

• How has your perception changed about the functionality of Linux versus other operating systems?
• From an end-user perspective, what value does a free, du, or whoami command provide?
• Finally, expand a bit on your day-to-day computer use: Which Linux commands you would be using regularly if your computer required you to use a command line interface?

Part B: In your responses to your peers(two paragraph below separately), consider their reflections and the Linux commands they listed:

• How do your lists compare and contrast?

Which of their commands do you consider the most important or useful for a beginning user in Linux?

Peer 1: When I started the course I was not sure what to expect with Linux, I was a little worried about it because I did an Intro to Python course recently and I did not like Python Scripting language at all. I have never used Linux before and I have become quite surprised as to how user friendly it has been so far. I have found that developing a script and learning to maneuver through the Linux CLI has been a real decent experience thus far. I am quite satisfied with the progress I am making and the pace and expectations of the course so far. From an end-user perspective the commands free, du and whoami offer significant value. The free command allows the end-user to see and understand the amount of memory available on the machine that is running a Linux OS. The du command or disk usage command allows the end-user to see the disk space being used by a particular file or directory within the working directory. This is always a good piece of info to know if you as the end-user want to keep you machine or system running efficiently. The whoami command can be useful in knowing what you are logged into the system as, because different users have different permissions and access within a system. If I was to use a Linux system on a day to day basis I think the ls command and all the variations of it. I believe understanding the file on the system, the privileges associated with those files and where they are located within the system are very useful. I also believe I would use the vi editor quite often as it is easy to develop text files and executable scripts on the system.

Peer 2: Although I have only been working with the Linux operating system for a short period of time I feel comfortable with it. I initially thought it was a bit arcane and unsophisticated, especially when compared to Microsoft Windows, but I’m beginning to appreciate its elegance. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m a C programmer. C is a simple, elegant programming language and like Linux, it has its little quirks that are annoying at first. As I gain more experience with the Linux CLI however I am beginning to see how powerful it can be, much like the C programming language. Unlike the Windows OS, it doesn’t demand huge amounts of system memory to execute commands quickly. The free command is helpful when you’re trying to determine how much memory is being used by the processes that are running at any given time. If you think adding more RAM to the computer might be a good idea, free will help you confirm that. The du command is used to show how much space the file system (directories and files) occupies on a disk. It can help you determine if you’re about to run out of space on your hard drive. The whoami command shows which user is currently logged into the system. Since only the owner/creator of certain files has full access to them, it’s important to make sure that you are the user that is logged into the system when you want to access your files. The most common commands that are used in both a GUI and a CLI are the ones that involve creating directories and files and the ones that allow the user to view directories and move files around within the file system. In the Linux CLI these commands would be: mkdir, touch, rm, cd, ls and cp.