It is easy to dismiss bash — the typical Linux shell program — as just a command prompt that allows scripting. Bash, however, is a full-blown programming language. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that ...

Skip one-click backup apps. This rsync script gives you full control over what gets saved and when, plus logs and a few hard-won lessons.

The first software that I was actually paid to develop was a 2-page shell script that prompted the user for a dozen or so pieces of information, before launching a set of cooperating processes. Those ...

Once a script is prepared and tested, you can get a significant task completed simply by typing the script's name followed by any required arguments. Developing scripts to handle your more complicated ...

You normally think of a critical section — that is, a piece of a program that excludes other programs from using a resource — as a pretty advanced technique. You certainly don’t often think of them as ...

The printf command offers well-defined behavior following the POSIX standard, which means it works the same way across shells and systems. Where echo often fails with escape sequences, printf handles ...

FFmpeg was designed as a cross-platform solution for video and audio recording, conversion, and streaming. Its About page describes the command-line tool as “the leading multimedia framework, able to ...