"Everything is a file" is what made me start understanding linux few years ago and from there it got easier to use with each new concept.

Still this was really revolutionary to me when I first heard it. Made a bunch of things just click.

Experienced users : archwiki & gentoo handbook, shell scripting, autotools, packaging, and dmesg

new users : "everything is a file"
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[–] 3 points 9 months ago

Yea, but socket is not a file. Maybe if you stretch the definition.

Well in any case, when people say that linux is great because everything is a file, they either mean that:

  • they can edit configuration of most things with a text editor, or that
  • in bash (and other shells) it is easy to work with byte streams, piping them from one process to another and compose complex behaviour from simple commands.
  • source
  • parent