Unix was developed as a command line interface in the early 1970s with a very rich command vocabulary. DOS followed more than a decade later for the IBM PC, and DOS commands migrated to Windows.

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

is the name of a UNIX command, executable program, or shell script to which you want to route output or from which you want to read input. The command(s) must be enclosed in either double or single ...

If you find your thrill delving into the networking side of Unix, you'll find that there are lots of commands to give you all the insights you might want. I will never forget my first ping. Working on ...

This digital fossil took me back in time when computers played Tic-Tac-Toe on paper.

Lifehacker reader Michael writes in with a nifty tip that was lurking in our comments all along, but deserves to see the bright light of posting. If you're already using the Unix-like Cygwin, it's an ...

A couple of days ago we discussed some problems that could arise with sizing files with HFS compression. This problem basically arises from there being a lack of consistency in the various utilities ...

The Windows Command Prompt certainly isn't the most friendly terminal around, and if you're coming from a UNIX background, it can feel like moving from a Ferrari to Fred Flintstone's car. Luckily, ...

If you've used the command line in Linux or a Unix-based platform like macOS, you're probably familiar with the "sudo" command -- it lets you run tasks with different (usually elevated) permissions ...