Chapter 3: Tools of the Trade

Introduction

The previous chapter familiarized you with Linux operating system fundamentals and some of the most commonly used programmer-level terminology. This chapter will focus on the tools that are available for creating programs, working with source files, and compiling and creating executable programs, libraries, and archives. These include tools used by traditional UNIX programmers as well as those used by modern Linux programmers. Most of them are command-line tools but some of them have desktop counterparts available from the open source organizations.

The most typically used general form of many of the Linux/UNIX-based command-line tools is given here, where the command represents the specific command or program name. It is followed by one or more options and one or more arguments. Many of the tools are equipped with several options, giving the command function a versatile set of features.

    $ command [options] <arguments>