What's your mnemonic for pwd?- OMG it means print working directory. My mind instantly goes to password every time. I had to reach puddle wuv dud levels of autism before thinking otherwise. I shame my

160 points · 70 comments · view on lemmy.world

70 Comments

Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 69 pts · 335d (22 replies)

On a side note:
I hate it that the password-change command is minimally abbreviated to "passwd".
Come on, making it much more complicated to remember and saving just two freakin letters??

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 74 pts · 335d (10 replies)

"umount" is worse

Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 37 pts · 335d (7 replies)

But the only command that I have to look up every damn time, although it has no abbreviation at all, is useradd.
Oh no, wait, I mean adduser!
... No, wait again... aah...

betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 335d

Next update changes it to usadder as a compromise. Supposedly, it's short for "user adder" but we all know it's to make "[you] sadder".

Hawke@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 335d (3 replies)

All the worse that Debian has both useradd and adduser. I never remember which is the one I want. And in Redhat-derivatives it’s something even more confusing.

The only thing I ever want to do is add a user to a group, is that too much to ask?

rtxn@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 335d

adduser is an interactive wrapper for useradd. It can, for example, prompt the user to set a password rather than execute passwd separately. Very useful if you just want to manage a user without reading through useradd's command line options, then running usermod because you forgot to set something.

It doesn't excuse the bad naming, I'd rather have something like useradd --interactive, but it's worth remembering.

ozymandias117@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 335d (1 reply)

You'd want usermod for that, no? If the user already exists and you're just modifying their groups?

mittorn@masturbated.one · 2 pts · 335d

@ozymandias117 @Hawke why not gpasswd?

kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 335d (1 reply)

Ah, damn it! I'll look it up next time. *sudo vim /etc/passwd*

Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 335d

Surely visudo, I hope

uranibaba@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 335d (1 reply)

First time I have to use it, the spelling really confused me. Wrote unmount and didn’t understand why it didn’t work.

Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 335d

I guess this also must be an additional layer of hellfire for dyslexics...

bacon_pdp@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 335d (2 replies)
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Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 15 pts · 335d (1 reply)

Now this looks like an interesting read. Thanks!

Hawke@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 335d

Kinda, but it’s pretty much all horrendously outdated bitching about superficial flaws in tools from 40 years ago.

abcdqfr@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 335d

I SAID, pass the wood

kibiz0r@midwest.social · 11 pts · 335d

It’s the passw daemon

tal@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 335d (2 replies)

making it much more complicated to remember

Do you not tab-complete your commands? I mean, my terminal usage for anything beyond very short commands consists of .

Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 335d (1 reply)

Do you not tab-complete your commands?

Sure I do (although nowadays Strg-r does most of the heavy lifting for me), but as a decent touch-typist I am often faster directly typing short commands, like passwor... damn, I mean: passwd ;-)

Danitos@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 335d

Strg-r does most of the heavy lifting for me

If you haven't, give fzf a try. Is like Ctrl+r in asteroids

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org · 4 pts · 335d (2 replies)

🤷 that's why we have ls, rm, mv and hell, even w.

To confuse things even more there's a utility called pwgen and I can never remember which two letters to type before hitting autocomplete.

diemartin@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 335d (1 reply)

mv = move, thus:

  • rm = rome
  • ls = lose
  • cd = code
  • w = woe
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org · 7 pts · 335d

That is so cool.

So

  • tr = tore
  • tty = totey
  • rsync = rosynce
  • ps = pose
  • pr = pore
  • mpd = moped

I could do this all day.

cobwoms@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 26 pts · 335d (12 replies)

isn't it just 'present working directory'?

Hawke@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 335d (2 replies)

No. “Print working directory” is the command to print (display) the “cwd” (current working directory).

LaggyKar@programming.dev · 6 pts · 335d (1 reply)

I find it weird when you get "pwd" as a variable

Hawke@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 335d

Kinda yeah, but I think that just comes from storing the output of the PWD command.

The system call that returns that value is called getcwd().

ozymandias117@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 335d
ruuster13@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 335d (1 reply)

You "print" to standard output, which is the terminal.

tal@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 335d

Unless you're old-school and using a teletype as your terminal and actually printing it.

Stillwater@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 335d (1 reply)

This is what it is at least in my head

clif@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 335d

In my head too. We can share though.

Deconceptualist@leminal.space · 5 pts · 335d (1 reply)

That's what I've always known it as

4am@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 335d

I mean it’s basically the same thing but the command itself means “print”; it’s a damn old command and it probably predates using screens for terminals (used to be printers); which is why all the parts of Linux (ugh, and GNU of course) that came from Unix ideas came from that age.

You literally sat in front of a typewriter that would respond to you. Wild.

ButWhatDoesItAllMean@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 335d

Welp, I always thought path-to-working-directory like to get the full path

pulsewidth@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 334d

It absolutely can be either and is not so clear cut as responders are claiming.

Weather its 'print working directory' or 'present working directory' depends on the source you ask, and ultimately they have the same meaning so it really doesn't matter which you use.

Whenever pwd is used as a variable, 'present' is more logical than 'print'.

https://qmacro.org/blog/posts/2020/11/08/the-myriad-meanings-of-pwd-in-unix-systems/

kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 15 pts · 335d (2 replies)

My kryptonite is du which reports disk usage, and df which reports disk file size, or no, wait, du is file size and df is disk usage.

Most of the time I can only remember whichever one I don't need at the moment and futilely hope that its man page will mention the other (which it doesn't).

umbraroze@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 335d

I'm always like "du shows disk usage of files, and df shows how much of disk is free".

megaman@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 333d

I just try them both every time

StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr · 15 pts · 335d

pwned

Lembot_0004@discuss.online · 11 pts · 335d (12 replies)
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abcdqfr@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 335d (10 replies)

alias 'where_the_fuck_am_i'="pwd"

potoo22@programming.dev · 21 pts · 335d (9 replies)

alias who_the_fuck_am_i='whoami'

somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 335d (8 replies)

alias what_the_hell_is_going_on='btop'

DrWorm@piefed.social · 12 pts · 335d (7 replies)

alias who_the_fuck_is_that=finger

cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 335d (6 replies)

alias finger_me='finger $USER'

NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de · 16 pts · 335d (4 replies)

What the hell is wrong with all of you? Command names obviously use - and not _

Limitless_screaming@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 335d

alias _='-'

somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 335d

alias too_late='echo 😛'

mittorn@masturbated.one · 0 pts · 335d
zxqwas@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 335d

Unfortunately all the 2, 3 and 4 letter combinations are used as an alias for when i mistype "ls"

threeonefour@piefed.ca · 9 pts · 335d (6 replies)

I thought it meant p-word. As in "wet ass p-word"

fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 335d (5 replies)

You are allowed to say pussy on the internet. Cats did nothing wrong.

SirSamuel@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 335d

"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are."

  • Lords and Ladies
okr765@lemmy.okr765.com · 1 pts · 334d (3 replies)

Ah yes, everyone knows how "pwd" looks like "pussy" and definitely not "p-word".

fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 334d (2 replies)

I think you missed the WAP aka wet ass pussy song title reference in their "wet ass p-word".

okr765@lemmy.okr765.com · 3 pts · 334d (1 reply)

Pretty sure it refers to a clip of the "intellectual" Ben Shapiro being afraid to say the word "pussy" when reading through the lyrics of the song and making misogynistic comments about it

fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 334d

Okay, so you did get the wordplay between pwd, pussy, and p-word in the comment.

Unless I'm really slow and I missed another joke I don't get your complaint on my joke response, sorry.

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org · 5 pts · 335d (2 replies)

I usually abbreviate these "in German" in my head. Esp. handy if there's a freaking double-U in it, which is just one syllable in German. Exception: /etc = Etsy

4am@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 335d

I’m still not over the fact that /etc isn’t for et cetera

EDIT: turns out that it is, and that there’s a lot of dumbasses on the internet “teaching”

Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 335d

You might be right.
I am German and never had a problem with pwd... The "double-you" certainly breaks some easy phonetic connections you would otherwise just make...

pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 335d (1 reply)

I always called it Present Working Directory but apparently it's Print

bigfondue@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 335d
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captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 335d (1 reply)

I pronounce it pwood.

Revan343@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 335d

Pwud here

callyral@pawb.social · 3 pts · 334d

puh-wuh-duh

DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 334d

pizza with dick is how i reamber it

rikudou@lemmings.world · 2 pts · 308d

My mnemonic is a bit weird, purrent working directory. I know the term cwd (current working directory) but I never bothered to learn what the p stands for, so I named it myself as purrent.

lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 335d

I use muscle memory.

bitwolf@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 335d

I use it both for password and pwd interchangeably

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 335d

Sir this is Wendy's