The Ignorance Of Err Ignorant People dd is a tool. dd can do a lot more then cat. dd can count, seek, skip (seek/drop input), and do basic-ish data conversion.

The Ignorance Of Err Ignorant People dd is a tool. dd can do a lot more then cat. dd can count, seek, skip (seek/drop input), and do basic-ish data conversion. dd is standard, even more standard then cat (the GNU breed). I even used it to flip a byte in a binary, a couple of times. New-ish gnu dd even adds a nice progress display option (standard is sending it sigusr1, since dd is made to be scripted where only the exit code matters). > Actually, using dd is almost never necessary, and due to its highly nonstandard syntax is usually just an easy way to mess things up. Personally I never messed it up, nor was confused about it. This sentence also sets the tone of the whole article, a rather subjective tone that is. edit: Some dd usage examples: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn-the-dd-command-362506/ http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn...