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 usesdate -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.
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.
You need to pay extra attention to this, as ML models will spit out commands and parameters that doesn’t exists if there was not enough examples in training dataset for that action. Especially with explain as it could just spit out totally wrong but “sounding good” explanation for parameter etc as it not always will tell the magic keywords like “typically” that indicate that it doesn’t have confidence as it’s “based on other similar command/knowledge”.
In your example it spit out:
-m: Prune empty directory chains from the file-list. --prune-empty-dirs: Exclude empty directories that result from the inclusion/exclusion pattern.which is actually exactly the same parameter with 2 different explanations, you can confirm this with
man rsync--prune-empty-dirs, -m prune empty directory chains from file-listSo the more edge case you have the bigger chance it will spill out bad results, but those new models are shockingly good especially for very common use cases.
Absolutely. And I would also add that the more critical the use case, the more work you should do to double check things. Don’t rely on gpt alone if you’re doing critical backups, for example. But if you just want a python program that sorts MP3s, then go ahead and give it a whirl.
You can’t escape people pumping the AI bubble anywhere. Fuck off. I don’t want your subscription and if I want to know how shit works I can read the source code.
I’m guessing for you it’s number 3.
The high rate of gatekeeping in the Linux community can be attributed to several factors:
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Expertise and Complexity: Linux, with its technical complexity and steep learning curve, can foster environments where expertise is highly valued. This can lead to some individuals using their knowledge as a form of power, controlling access to information and resources.
-
Cultural Heritage: The origins of Linux in a niche, technically proficient community have perpetuated a culture that prizes deep knowledge and expertise, sometimes at the expense of inclusivity.
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Identity and Status: For some, their identity and status within the community are closely tied to their perceived expertise and control over certain aspects of the technology, which can lead to gatekeeping behaviors to protect their standing.
-
Fear of Dilution: There’s often a concern that broadening the community might dilute its values or lower its standards, prompting some members to gatekeep to maintain a perceived purity or quality.
Efforts to address these issues often involve community-led initiatives to foster a more welcoming and inclusive environment, alongside mentorship programs to help newcomers navigate the community more effectively.
I apologise for the language but I am fed up with this shit.
I don’t think promoting OpenAI/Microsoft services is very compatible with the open source/free software ethos.
OpenAI pretend to be a non-profit but are controlled by billionaires and Microsoft. I am not going to take up a subscription and have my personal data mined by a company so I can have the arch wiki and man pages developed with millions of hours of volunteer labour served back to me.
I used to attend Linux/free software conferences decades ago and there would always be that one person who thought Facebook or Google were brilliant and that adding everyone’s lives and personal data to gmail or facebook was totally fine because the APIs were cool and big companies are totally ethical, “Don’t be Evil” etc. I thought they were foolish then and I think time has shown they are even more foolish now.
Every news site and forum I go to, even very non-technical ones, has people appear out of nowhere exclaiming with enthusiasm how OpenAI/copilot solved all their problems in great detail. Whether they are genuine or are just on the hype train created by bots and paid influencers I am at my breaking point with this shit. It is worse than the crypto bros with their NFT monkeys and get rich schemes. It has nothing directly todo with Linux or open source software. I escaped reddit to avoid all the influencers and people peddling shit but it is here as well and people can’t see it for what it is.
Buddy can’t think for themselves and have to generate a response via AI. Pathetic.
You’d be a number 4
You are a number 2, buddy. I’m not referring to your list.
This isn’t even a Linux thing. You AI bros just fucking suck in general.
Lol you certainly earned what they said with this brilliant fucking reply.
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Rude!
Wtf dude did you read the post?
Interesting post, but made me also think of this one : https://xkcd.com/1168/
What I’ve always wondered about that one is: why bother forbidding Google but not ‘man tar’? 🤨
😀 After seeing the comic for the first time I thought that the “UNIX” ™ person simply could have gone for
tar --helportar --versionas valid command to show off their “UNIX” skills and save all.Also surely a lot of people would know tar -Create Ze Vucking File and/or tar -Xtract Ze Vucking File
I’m not opposed at all to using LLMs for such purposes, however, please consider a solution that aligns with the values of GNU/Linux and the Free Software Movement. If you have sufficient RAM and a somewhat modern CPU, you can do inference on your very own machine, locally, with no connection to any external servers. And at very respectable speed.
Serious question: Can running locally be as good as ChatGPT-4?
It’s worth doing anyway to get a sense of how computationally intensive it is. Then consider how many people ask for the daily fart joke and you get a sense of the environmental impact.
in terms of the quality of writing you can get models from 20GB at a similar level to GPT-4 (good for creative writing but much worse if knowledge of something is required)
the model I use (~20GB) would know what rclone is but would most likely not know how to use it
EDIT: now that I think about it is was based off of some benchmark. personally I wouldn’t say it performs at GPT-4 but maybe GPT-3.5
Which model is that? I tried several ones that were complete trash, then Mixtrail appeared and starting giving answers that are very basic but mostly factually correct. But none of these are even close to ChatGPT that I can rely on with writing scripts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather not give them my data and money if there was an alternative. But for tech stuff we’re not there yet.
yeah, my bad. edited the comment with more accurate info
and this does apply to creative writing, not knowledgeable stuff like coding
I am actually curious about that, would I need a high powered GPU? I’m running a refurbished Dell Optiplex with a very basic video card that I added
For myself, I’m fine with using ChatGPT and other LLMs (I’ve been experimenting with trying to run them locally, so that I can gain some insight on them a bit better) to “fill in the gaps”, or as a sort of interactable Wikipedia - but I try to avoid asking LLMs something that I have zero knowledge of, because it then makes it a bit more difficult to verify the results it produces.
User: “ChatGPT, write me a script to clean up my hard disk on Linux”
ChatGPT: sudo rm -rf / 😁
Squeaky clean 😅
I’m all for it as long as you keep using your brain. Coworker of mine set something upn on AWS that wasn’t working. Going through it I found the error. He said he tried it using chatgpt. He knows how to do it himself, he knows the actual mistake was a mistake, but he trusted Amazon Q when it said the mistake was correct. Even when double checking.
Trust, but verify.
I found it to be a helpful tool in your toolkit. Just like being able to write effective search queries is. Copying scripts off the internet and running them blindly is a bad idea. The same thing holds up for LLMs.
It may seem like it knows what it’s talking about, but it can often talk out of its arse too…
I’ve personally had good results with 3.5 on the free tier. Unless you’re really looking for the latest data
Is this as ad?
You could also use free LLMs, check out FMHY.
You can use Copilot or Mistral Chat for pretty much the same. Copilot offers GPT-4 (or 4.5) for free, Mistral Chat is using their own models which sometimes produce better results.
To be honest Microsoft restrictions made copilot extremely ineffective. I asked it to help me disable ssl verification in one of the java’s http clients for testing purposes during development. It said it’s something I never should do and will not give me an answer. ChatGPT restrictions are way more rational than that. Microsoft gutted the tool a lot.
It’s a pretty helpful tool, but I still prefer running an LLM locally, even though it’ll take a while to answer, then
Yup, same here. I’ve also used it to write shell scripts and figure out unique ways to configure my system that I would have been hard pushed to achieve via a web search. It’s incredibly useful.
If you haven’t already tried it I would also highly recommend phind.com for troubleshooting or coding questions.
Also for a nice quick access to gpt from your terminal grab “tgpt” and you can ask questions directly from your terminal.
Thanks for the tip!
It’s funny you should mention rsync; I set up a shell script the other day that backs up my stuff using Borg and rsync, and I was basically chatting with an AI all day to learn about Borg and get everything set up correctly. I was reading man pages to get the details of the arguments, though; I didn’t think to ask the AI to explain them to me. That’s a great idea.
In any case, the experience was something of an eye opener. It was fun and easy.
I constantly use it for running Linux commands that have complicated options and arguments or that I just don’t remember.
I’ve found it’s best for things you kinda already know the answer to or at least know what it should look like, it fills in the blanks
Also, for gpt 4 you can get it without the subscription if you do it through the API and use something like gpt-cli (you’re still paying for it but unless you’re talking to it hours on end it’ll end up cheaper that way)
