A type of user interface for a computer. This can be both command line or graphical user interfaces. More commonly, shell often relates to the command line interface.
29
votes
3answers
12k views
How can I trigger a Notification Center notification from an AppleScript or shell script?
I'd love to be able to take advantage of 10.8's Notification Center features in AppleScripts and shell scripts I write.
Is there a built-in command or a third-party library I can use from either an ...
27
votes
4answers
1k views
Is there a way to access a Mac's geolocation from terminal? (Mountain Lion)
(Note the Mountain Lion update at end of question)
Some GUI apps use OS X location services, but I want to retrieve a Mac's physical location from the command line. This could be useful for running ...
12
votes
2answers
6k views
Amending PATH so that /usr/local/bin is ahead of /usr/bin
I'm trying to install brew but get the following warning:
Warning: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin
This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those
provided by Homebrew. ...
10
votes
4answers
4k views
Is it possible to run Nautilus on OS X?
Is it possible to run Nautilus instead of Finder on Mac OS X Snow Leopard? How?
10
votes
2answers
408 views
cd to a directory just by typing its name?
For example if a directory 'blob' exists, I just type 'blob[return]' and the system cds into the blob directory for me.
In Linux (Ubuntu) I can use shopt -s autocd and I add it to my .bashrc file, ...
10
votes
1answer
8k views
Can I get the CPU temperature and fan speed from the command line in OS X?
Is there a command I can run from the command line in OS X to get the current CPU temperature and/or the fan speed(s)?
To be more specific, I'd like to be able to get the same info available in the ...
8
votes
3answers
196 views
How can I automatically keep track of in-office hours when I connect to my office Wi-Fi?
I'm looking for a solution that starts a timer whenever I sign in to my office wifi and stops it when I've left. It should essentially log the hours I've spent at the office. I'm aware that there's ...
6
votes
2answers
246 views
How can I change my default bash shell to a different one - /usr/local/bin/bash
How can I set my /usr/local/bin/bash (which is the 4.2 version that allows auto-completion of 'cd to directory with directory name') to be my default bash for a new window instead of my regular ...
6
votes
2answers
338 views
How can I kill a process using top on OS X?
On other Unixe,s I can use top and then hit K and type the process ID.
How can I do that in OS X?
I can type kill [the_pid] on its own at the command line and that works. However, I was wondering if ...
5
votes
1answer
5k views
Bash or Zsh, what's the difference, why use one or the other?
So, the question pretty much says it all. I'm on Snow Leopard, and I do a lot of web development, particularly in Rails 3 which makes heavy use of the console.
I've seen some notable bloggers etc. ...
5
votes
1answer
605 views
How can I format the output of ping in bash?
I am using the following script to cycle through a list of IP addresses and report back on the % of packet loss.
I'd also like to have the IP address printed first, then its % of packet loss. But I ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
How do I reset the scrollback in the terminal via a shell command?
When using Terminal.app, you can clear the screen by using the shell builtin clear or by pressing ^+L (Control-L).
However, all this does is push the current screen content back one screen height ...
5
votes
1answer
219 views
How to isolate the most disk-active process(es) in OS X?
I have some process(es) performing a lot of drive access from time to time, however I've hitherto been unable to isolate which process or processes are performing the access. What shell command can I ...
5
votes
2answers
114 views
How to automatically watch for file changes and perform a custom action inside shell?
For example, I'd like to automatically run YUI Compressor whenever I edit a JavaScript source file to output a compressed version.
Ideally the process does not run in the background but in a ...
5
votes
2answers
454 views
How to mount a RAM disk on startup?
I'm trying to mount a RAM disk on startup with this:
/Users/Aram/Development/Tools/ramdisk.sh
diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "RamDisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://800000`
com.aram.ramdisk.plist
...
4
votes
4answers
994 views
How to prevent Mac sleep from command line?
I have a long running script at the remote computer.
I don't want terminate my ssh session, and need enter it into a shell script.
How is it possible to prevent my Mac from falling into sleep from ...
4
votes
2answers
161 views
How can I have my shell always start in a certain directory that is not my home directory
I've tried putting
cd /Users/my_name/my_directory/structure
in both .bashrc and .bash_login but neither works, i.e. when I open a new terminal window I am in my home (/Users/my_name/) directory.
...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
Creating a virtual serial port
I'm trying to create a pair of virtual serial ports on my mac. This is fairly easy to do with many shareware programs on a PC. I figured there would be some uber-powerful shell command to do this in ...
4
votes
1answer
185 views
How do I set an icon for a directory via the CLI? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Changing a file or folder icon using the Terminal
This is a continuation of this thread from Super User. The question is how to set an icon on a directory. At first I ...
4
votes
1answer
144 views
How to reset $PATH?
I was trying to add something to $PATH and it went totally wrong. I now can't run any commands such as ls. I've looked at this answer and used the following lines:
...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
What terminal commands are new or updated in Mountain Lion?
Where can I find a list of new or updated terminal commands or features for Mountain Lion?
Lacking any list, does anyone have a sugguestion on how to generate that list? (some combination of ls ...
3
votes
2answers
149 views
Are Bash, Bourne, and Korn shells compiled into one binary in OSX?
On OSX 10.8, if you compare the binaries for bash, sh, and ksh, a few different shell options, they are the same size. If you take it further and cmp the binaries, there seems to be only a ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
open new terminal tab in the same directory with the active tab
In GNOME Terminal of Ubuntu when you open a new tab the new shell will automatically start you in the current working directory of the active tab shell.
E.g. if in the active tab shell I am on ...
3
votes
3answers
578 views
Running .NET binary with mono
When I have abc.exe generated from C#/Mono source, I use 'mono abc.exe'.
Is there a way to run abc.exe with 'abc.exe' not 'mono abc.exe'? I mean, when I run 'abc.exe', can I make 'mono abc.exe' ...
3
votes
2answers
354 views
Identify connected external disks programmatically
I want to write a shell script that ejects all currently-connected external drives (either USB or Firewire drives). I can use the disktuil eject <disk-path> to eject a specified drive. But I ...
3
votes
2answers
370 views
Editing System Preferences via Terminal
Am looking to edit system preferences settings via the command line but cannot for the life of me find the correct names of variables.
In Login Options under Users & Groups, I would like to be ...
3
votes
1answer
72 views
Detecting that a script is run within ARD
Does anyone know of a way to detect that a shell script is running within ARD (vs. running the same script locally on the machine)?
I looked at detecting that we are running in interactive mode - ...
3
votes
1answer
236 views
Printing the current date/time with sub-second precision
GNU date(1) understands the %N format spec, which outputs nanoseconds, so:
$ date +%H:%m:%S.%N
outputs 19:10:03.725196000
BSD date doesn't understand %N. How can I print the current time with ...
3
votes
1answer
263 views
How do I find where an environmental variable got set?
I installed a program to try it out, and decided I didn't like it so I moved the app to the trash.
Today, in my shell, I noticed that there are a couple of PROGRAMNAME_BLAHBLAH environmental ...
3
votes
1answer
538 views
-bash: Applications/mvim: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Operation not permitted
I am getting a weird error with the mvim script that is supposed to start the MacVim interface.
See below for the issue. /bin/sh is just fine, mvim was chmod +x'd, other /bin/sh scripts run fine... ...
3
votes
1answer
465 views
What should the standard contents of $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH be?
I'm trying to install CERN's root libraries on my mac os Lion.
It needs me to set $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH, but on checking
echo $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
it seems to be empty (before I'm adding to it). Is ...
3
votes
1answer
505 views
Search through terminal history with up and down keys in OS X Lion
After I upgraded to OS X I am not able to use my ~/.inputrc bindings to search through the shell command history:
# these allow you to start typing a command and
# use the up/down arrow to auto ...
3
votes
2answers
168 views
Group running apps in OSX?
Since I'm working on several projects that require different resources (shells, files, chrome windows, etc), I'd like to organize them better.
Is there a mac utility or something that will allow me ...
3
votes
1answer
518 views
How to fix lsregister failing associations after reboot? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do I remove duplicate “Open With” context menu items in Finder.app?
I'm running 10.7.5 and I have noticed a problem with associations between files and applications. ...
3
votes
2answers
169 views
what is DELUXE-USR-LOCAL-BIN-INSERT in ~/.profile file?
My .profile file includes the following obscure lines. What are they for?
##
# DELUXE-USR-LOCAL-BIN-INSERT
# (do not remove this comment)
##
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Using locate.updatedb doesn't work in Lion
A week ago I upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard. I want to use the locate command, but the locate database has not been built yet. So I tried running
sudo launchctl -w ...
3
votes
2answers
201 views
Is there a way to provide a sort order to an mdfind query?
In trying to get a list of all music files from a particular album using mdfind I see that the files aren't necessarily returned in any order. I'd prefer album/track order if possible, but can't find ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Is there a way to minimize open windows from the command line in OS X Lion?
Just wondering if there is a way to retrieve open windows and minimize them from the command line in Lion?
I have an AppleScript that does this, but it kind of slow, so wanted to know if there was ...
3
votes
0answers
57 views
“Libraries” (a la Windows 7) on OS X?
There's one feature from Windows 7 that I sort of like (yeah, yeah, I know...) and would like to implement (differently) on OS X. It's what they call "Libraries". It allows you to have the contents ...
2
votes
1answer
623 views
Why won't wget work with cron?
I've been using the bashpodder script (http://lincgeek.org/bashpodder/) recently, and while the script works beautifully when I use it in the command line, the crontab I created for it doesn't work at ...
2
votes
3answers
639 views
Check if a process is running, if not execute it again in Terminal
Is there a way to periodically check if a process is running with (probably with Apple script, or some other shell script) and if not then to execute it in Terminal?
I have a PHP script that is needs ...
2
votes
1answer
78 views
Apple command file exits early
I wrote an .command script that when I launch it, it just exits and it's to quick for me to see what's going on. How do I keep it open?
2
votes
5answers
3k views
How can I write a script to open multiple terminal tabs and execute code in them?
I want to be able to open the terminal application and have it either automatically run a script that opens several tabs and run an arbitrary set of commands in each. For example I would like one tab ...
2
votes
3answers
985 views
Opening a terminal window to a specific directory from a bash script
How can I write a bash script in Mac OS X that opens a Terminal window in a specific directory? I'd assume something like:
open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
But that does nothing (maybe ...
2
votes
1answer
138 views
Porting Linux shell scripts
The command
shell$ ls . -R
works on Linux but not on OS X. This is because OS X command line options have to come before the arguments,and not just anywhere as in Linux.
In particular, this ...
2
votes
2answers
78 views
Change default shell from bash to zsh
I've tried to switch my default shell to zsh, using chsh:
chsh -s /bin/zsh
and:
chsh -s `which zsh`
Both commands ended with:
Changing shell for adamatan.
Password for adamatan:
chsh: ...
2
votes
3answers
2k views
/bin/sh: rm: command not found
I have problems with some applications that use AppleScript shell script feature. For example, Growl's uninstall scripts shows an error:
error "/bin/sh: rm: command not found" number 127
The source ...
2
votes
3answers
189 views
How to determine the absolute path to a file in a shell script
I am writing a generic script that can get passed both absolute and relative (to the current working dir) paths to existing files.
I need a fail-safe way to turn all those passed paths into absolute ...
2
votes
2answers
317 views
pbpaste, pbcopy using wrong pasteboard?
I'm converting a shell script which xclip and similar tools on Linux, to use pbpaste and pbcopy on Mac. The problem is the default pasteboard ('general' according to the man-page) for these tools is ...
2
votes
2answers
779 views
Bash shell script to locate and remove substring within a filename
I am trying to write a bash shell script (which is called by an Automator Action) to rename TV show DVD rips that I have named badly over the years. I want to remove part of the text in the filenames. ...
