Hi. I am new to the Linux world and am currectly learning Red Hat 9 with the help of a book; The Red Hat 9 Bible. One question has arroused while learning all the new commands and I wanted to ask it here, on Computing.net. Here is my question; the commands that I am learning and soon to be using, are they are the same for all Linux distributions such as Mandrake, Suse, Slackware, FreeBSD, etc? Thanks.

Yes, They will be the same for all LINUX distributions. Though the locations of config files may be different, as Redhat tends to move things around. BUT, it will not be the same for all types of *nix. FreeBSD is not Linux, its BSD, a completly different system. The commands will not be the same for that, but they are similar.

I'll have to dispute that, a little bit. Not all of the commands are the same, assuming by commands you are referring to "external" ones, such as "redhat-config-xfree86" obviously isn't going to be the same in Suse and Mandrake. I use Mandrake (6.1 and 8.2) and Redhat (4.2, 5.2, and 8), so I can tell you that it can be annoying when trying to figure out what the "current" high-level editor of config files for a particular service is. A great example is the program to modify the XF86Config file for X-Windows. I used to use "XF86Setup", but that appears to have gone by the wayside in newer distros. Some commands, such as "ls", "mkdir", and "rm", have maintained consistency amongst the distros, as well as throughout the Unix world, as far as I'm aware (I've used AIX for the past 6 years, too). These commands are "internal", though, I believe. All I can say is good luck and have a little patience, as these changes are bound to happen. I'm conservative (wish things would stay the same), but some believe in "progress" (It's not all bad). Some want change, however, simply for the sake of change, and that's just annoying, in my opinion. One important thing to learn, I think, is what files (config files, for instance, most of which are in the /etc directory structure) this program or that one is modifying. Then, as you move on to newer versions, you can know what to look for, plus you'll have a better understanding of how it all works. Best of luck to ya.

what commands are you talking about? Linux systems are made up of a kernel called linux, a runtime C library and basic tools and utilites like the shell. The commands you are talking about are the names of the basic tools you execute. To show the contents of a dir for example, you type "ls" at the bash prompt and bash then executes the program "ls" which is located in the "/bin" directory. Now if you were to change the name of "ls" to "foo" then you will have to type "foo" to show the contents of the directory. The very basic names are kept same in most unix systems because of convenience and historical reasons, but there may be other programs which ones distributor has and the other does not (or has another program that does the same thing). I dunno why people call it "commands". This "commmand" thing is really confusing...

Pardon, me, but I was mistaken. The "ls", "mkdir", and "rm" commands are not "internal" as I thought. I take that terminology from my DOS days. The "internal" commands were in memory from command.com. The "external" ones were usually in the directory "C:\DOS". I assumed the equivalent commands in Linux were also internal. Like Balram said, those Linux commands (executables) are in the "/bin" directory. Again, sorry for the misinformation.