[ale] how do I list big files

Ron Frazier atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com
Sun Mar 20 22:39:43 EDT 2011


Yup. Times sure have changed a lot since then. I used to work with some 
of those giant drives at Delta Air Lines. A whole stack of ~ 15" 
platters held a whopping 300 MB. It was made very clear to me that you 
had to shut those down properly and treat them gingerly.

Ron

On 03/20/2011 09:26 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:
> On 03/20/2011 04:07 PM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>    
>> Hi Scott,
>>
>> That's pretty cool. It was good of you to check before shutting down.
>> That's one thing I try to reinforce to anyone I advise about computers
>> of modern vintage, never never just power off. Always use the shutdown
>> procedure and wait for it to finish. Modern drives will autopark the
>> heads, but you don't want a bunch of open OS and applications files
>> hanging around at power off.
>> Ron
>>
>>      
> Actually if memory serves me correctly the heads not parking or just
> landing wherever they were at power off was on stepper drives and the
> one or two servo drives at the time did auto-retract at power off. When
> I started with UNIX on mini systems and super-minis the HDDs used then
> had the large 18" platter(s) and were servo controlled with huge
> voice-coils that the heads would retract into. The first time I used a
> DOS system I thought it strange that you only had to enter the date&
> time after turning it on. When I went to shut it off I entered my
> usually shutdown -g0 -y and it gave me an error, probably something like
> Command not found and I was afraid to just shut it off. After making a
> call to NY from FL I had some doubts and confusion that if you're at a C
> prompt just flip the switch. I also knew nothing about stepper drives at
> the time as I never seen a small drive before at least a hard drive. Had
> 2 floppies and a cassette on my Commodore 64, which to me was a toy at
> first.
>    
>> On 03/20/2011 03:37 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:
>>      
>>> On 03/20/2011 11:28 AM, Ron Frazier wrote:
>>>
>>>        
>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the tips.  I suspected it was something like that, but didn't
>>>> know what.
>>>>
>>>> I'm learning all the time, but it's a slow process.  I've been learning
>>>> DOS / Windows for 26 years, Linux for 1 year.  It will take a while to
>>>> develop comprehensive knowledge.  The first part of the learning curve
>>>> is the hardest.
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>
>>>> Ron
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> I went the other way, UNIX first than DOS. It cost me a $5 LD call to
>>> find out that DOS didn't have a shutdown command. I later wrote a bat
>>> file that parked the heads and echoed "Safe to Power Down!"
>>>
>>>        
>>>> On 03/20/2011 10:21 AM, Michael Trausch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> Yes,>     is the shell redirection operator. 2>     says to redirect CD
>>>>> number two, which is the stderr stream.  Without an integer supplied,
>>>>> the stdout stream (number 1) is the default.
>>>>>
>>>>> The<     operator is input redirection. Its default target is the
>>>>> process' fd 0 (stdin), though again that can be changed. A program
>>>>> that, for example, opened a socket connection as fd 5 and fd 6 could
>>>>> be used with shell redirection (and even fancier pipelining) if desired.
>>>>>
>>>>> Again, I think you should spend some time getting familiar with "UNIX"
>>>>> as a whole.  Even concepts from the late 60s and 70s are still
>>>>> applicable on moden systems, and the basics are essentially unchanged.  :)
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Sent from my phone... a G2 running CM7 nightlies!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>            

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com



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