Thanks Peter. I'm a Mac guy so not familiar with the Linux terminology, although I probably have the utilities you mentioned since OSX is Linux at its core. Pete lcSQL Software <http://www.lcsql.com>
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Peter Alcibiades < palcibiades-fi...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Its a Linux thing. Linux is packaged up out of a huge number of components > into actual systems known as 'distributions'. There are probably around > 10-15 major distributions, and around 350 in total. A great many > distributions are remixes of major ones for some specific purpose. Ubuntu > is a distribution which originally was a Debian remix. Other major ones > would be Fedora, Suse, Debian, Slackware. Distrowatch.com carries a > complete listing. > > The way a package gets into a distribution is that it has 'maintainers'. > So > they will take the source code and produce a Debian or Ubuntu package which > the core team then accepts for a given release. > > When they do that, it goes into the repositories, which are online archives > of all the packages. I don't know about Ubuntu, but Debian probably has > some 20-30,000 packages in its repositories. > > When you install a package, its not normally a case of get a file and > install it. You use a package manager, of which there are four or five > variants. The usual one for Debian and Ubuntu is Synaptic, but there are > others. Think of them as clients. > > One way to categorize distributions is by how packages are managed. So you > have the 'apt' ones, of which Debian and Ubuntu are examples. 'rpm' > derives > from Red Hat and Suse and Fedora use it. If it helps, think of this a bit > like email. Synaptic would be an email client, and there are others. The > underlying system would be a bit like pop3 or some other mail service > prototcol. > > You find the package in your package manager and tell it to do the > installation. The package manager then finds all the stuff that it needs > (so called 'dependencies') and installs them too, and it normally takes > care > of putting in menu entries and so on. > > You can also manually install packages - in the case of Debian and Ubuntu > these will be so called '.deb' packages. And you can get the source code > and compile and install it. If you do this, you have to take care of > dependencies yourself, which can be tedious, and this is why package > managers were developed. > > So that's what a repository is. The reason regex is a bit different in the > Linux world, which would include Macs, these being derived from Unix, is > that they are built into the command line utilties. That's the essence of > Linux at a sophisticated user level. Of course, you can, and many people > do, use it just like Windows or OSX, in which case its just a vehicle to > your applications and files via a graphical interface, and you don't even > have to realise that there are many different possible desktop > environments, > login managers and so on. > > The real point of Linux however in terms of features is the shell, and the > thing about this is that regex is like the air in the shell. Its all > around > and being used all the time, and is accessible from anywhere. Any Linux > editor will support them. Geany is what I use, but Kate is another. This > is why I suggested awk to Richmond. Awk and Sed are old fashioned text > manipulation utilties which are built into all Linux distributions - and > txt2regex and regexxer are going to be in almost all the major > repositories. > If you need to hack around with text, the easiest and quickest way is to > use > the tools that have evolved to do it. They've evolved over 30+years in the > hands of very bright and impatient people who just wanted to get certain > jobs done as simply and quickly as possible, so they are really > sophisticated and powerful. > > Nothing wrong with LiveCode, it does text excellently, but it depends what > you are doing and whether you want to just use a command on a file, or > actually write a program. The commands and the way they can be made to > interact are just very quick, powerful and flexible ways of doing stuff > with > text, and after the initial learning curve, they are almost instant. > > A bit longer than I had meant. If you want to try a distribution, get the > xfce version of PCLinuxOS to start. But Debian is where you will end up. > > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/REGEX-and-Livecode-tp4658514p4658599.html > Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
