meta question about learning Unix, PATH, HOME, and ~

    > <rant mode on>
    >
    > <rant mode interruptus>
    >
    >
    > <sigh -- rant mode resumes ... >
    >
    > <rant mode back into abeyance>
    >
    >
    > <rant mode re-resumes>
    >
    > ... <he howled, gazing at the moon>.


I have a question about why you, Beartooth or anyone watching, 
wants to learn Unix/Linux/*nix. I also studied mathematics, 
especially set theory & logic, and the reason I like Unix is 
similar to the reason I like math, namely there's a purity and a 
beauty to building very powerful things out of very simple 
building blocks. I do not have a problem reading most man pages 
so it is hard for me to relate to your man page ranting above 
Beartooth. I think that my years of careful reading of very 
terse mathematics was excellent preparation for man page reading!

Anyway, I'm not saying that you should be able to, or want to, 
read man pages. What I'm wondering is *why* are you trying to 
learn this stuff? If I can understand that, it might help me to 
help you reach your goals. For example, maybe the solution is 
for you to use a different operating system or to quit using the 
command line. I'm not saying that that's the solution, I'm just 
trying to understand why you are torturing yourself with the 
Unix command-line world.

Looking forward to Beartooth and others response to this,
Nancy