Using ChatGPT with Linux - Lemmy.World
Last night I was nearly tearing my hair out trying to get a crappy inkjet
printer installed when I turned to ChatGPT for help; 5 minutes later it was done
(driver issues). I realised that I use it a lot for all sorts of things but
haven’t really seen any posts on here about it, and was wondering if other
people do the same. I’ve used it to create bash scripts, write small, niche
python programs (eg sort photos into separate folders based on their
orientation), and create cron jobs among other things. In particular, I find it
useful when I want to use a command line program that has a complicated set of
options / syntax, but I might only ever want to use it once, or very
infrequently. So I tell it what I want to accomplish, and ask it to give me the
correct command to run with the options I specify in plain language. Example:
User Give me the correct rsync command to recursively copy all files in
/home/user/Documents that are image files of any type but were created more
recently than 1/1/2024. The destination is /home/user/foo ChatGPT rsync -avm
--include='*/' --include='*.jpg' --include='*.jpeg' --include='*.png'
--include='*.gif' --include='*.bmp' --include='*.tiff' --include='*.svg'
--exclude='*' --prune-empty-dirs --min-age=$(date -d '2024-01-01' +%s)
/home/user/Documents/ /home/user/foo/ User Break down the command and explain
each part of it in dot point format. ChatGPT - rsync: Invokes the rsync program,
which is used for efficiently transferring and synchronizing files across
systems or within a system. - -avm: - -a: Archive mode, which preserves
permissions, symlinks, modification times, group, and ownership. Implicitly
includes recursion. - -v: Verbose mode, which provides detailed output of what
rsync is doing. - -m: Prune empty directory chains from the file-list. -
–include=‘/‘: Include directories themselves, which is necessary for recursion.
- –include=’.jpg’ --include=‘.jpeg’ --include='.png’ --include=‘.gif’
--include='.bmp’ --include=‘.tiff’ --include='.svg’: Include files that match
these image file extensions. - –exclude=‘*’: Exclude all other files that do not
match the previously stated include patterns. - –prune-empty-dirs: Exclude empty
directories that result from the inclusion/exclusion pattern. - –min-age=$(date
-d ‘2024-01-01’ +%s): Exclude files that are older than the timestamp for
January 1, 2024. This uses date -dto convert a date string into a timestamp,
whichrsyncuses to filter files. -/home/user/Documents/: Source directory from
which files are being synchronized. - /home/user/foo/: Destination directory to
which files are being synchronized. It’s also really good for explaining
concepts / commands in plain language. It’s like having a 24 hour on call Linux
expert :) #Things to note: - Get the subscription. ChatGPT 3.5 is pretty
useless. ChatGPT4 is fine, but I’m pretty sure you need the subscription to
access it. - Give it pre-instructions. I have told mine what distro, what shell
I’m using and the make and model of my laptop. If you have a subscription you
can add these as permanent pre-instructions, so to speak. That way it will be
much more likely to give you correct answers. - It’s not magic In order to get
what you want, you have to be able to ask the right questions. It will boost
your ability but won’t turn you in to a 1337 haxx0r -Ask questions As always,
don’t run any commands that you don’t understand. Ask it to break down any
commands it tells you to run if you don’t understand them. -Sometimes it goofs
For various reasons, sometimes it will ask you to install a package that no
longer exists, or will give you a command that doesn’t work. When that happens,
I just feed the error message back into ChatGPT and it usually is able to
correct itself. -Ask “Is there a better or easier way to do this?” This is
probably the most valuable question I’ve found to ask chatGPT. Sometimes it gets
so far in the weeds looking for a solution to a problem that you need to pull
back and start fresh.
