Five Linux command line rebus puzzles

Question

Solve the following 5 text rebuses, which are in the form of Linux (bash) command lines.

Rebus #1 (solved by Prem)

# type beep sound > file.txt 2> file2.txt

Hints:

1. The solution is a single word that appears in dictionary.com.
2. The word has 10 letters.

Rebus #2 (solved by frodoskywalker)

# cat file.png | wc -w
1000

Rebus #3 (solved by frodoskywalker)

# touch file1; while true; do mv file1 file2; mv file2 file1; done

Rebus #4 (solved by Geobits/karhell)

# echo -e "\e[0;97m\a"

Rebus #5 (solved by karhell)

# fsck /dev/sda1 &

Note: For your answer to be accepted, it must at a minimum contain the correct solution for Rebus #1.

This is frustrating. I see what the commands do, but apart from 2 and (possibly) 5, I have no idea what the rebus is supposed to mean — karhell, Jul 17 '15 at 14:21
I can't concentrate on the puzzles because the UUOC in #2 is really bothering me. :P — Doorknob, Jul 18 '15 at 20:01
@Doorknob Haha, true. I guess I really wanted to use a pipe for one of the puzzles. — pacoverflow, Jul 18 '15 at 20:30

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

16

Tentative answer :
rebus #1:

Could it be a sound filter ?

Explanation :

type beep sound tells us what beep and sound are.
> file1.txt redirects stdout to file1.txt
2> file2.txt redirects stderr to file2.txt
beep is a legitimate command, so type beep is redirected to file1
sound on the other hand is not, so it gets redirected to file2

Rebus #2 and #3:
Agreed with @frodoskywalker, see their answer for details

A picture is worth a thousand words, and Perpetual motion

Rebus #4:
(thanks @Geobits)

White noise

Explanation :

echo -e outputs its arguments taking ansi escapes into account
\e[0;97m is ansi for bold, high-intensity white
\a is an ascii bell character
A bell makes noise, therefore we have white noise.

Rebus #5:

To run a background check

Explanation:

fsck /dev/sda1 runs a filesystem consistency check on /dev/sda1 (main partition)
& allows the command to run in the background

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:50

Community

1

answered Jul 17 '15 at 14:44

karhell

556
2
9

Ahh, that makes sense. I thought it was "check yourself" but couldn't see what meaning the ampersand added. – frodoskywalker Jul 17 '15 at 14:56
Maybe "clear as a bell"? – Schism Jul 17 '15 at 15:05
@Schism No, rebus #4 doesn't have "clear" in it. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 15:06
5

White noise then? A bell should make a noise, at least on computers that allow it. – Set Big O Jul 17 '15 at 15:59
@Geobits That's right, feel free to post it as an answer. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 16:00
@pacoverflow I think you preempted that with "For your answer to be accepted, it must at a minimum contain the correct solution for Rebus #1." I could post it, but I'd just as well see it edited into one of the existing answers, since I have no clue at all about #1. – Set Big O Jul 17 '15 at 16:13
For Rebus #4, I used 97m instead of 37m because 37m looks gray. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 16:39
Ah, right, that makes sense :) – karhell Jul 17 '15 at 16:40
"sound filter" is not the correct answer for Rebus #1. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 17:15
actually, it looks like type returns true, in which case file1.txt accepts true. File2.txt has no error, and so doesn't accept anything, leading to the phrase: "You want the truth?" "you can't handle the truth!" – Nyk 232 Jul 17 '15 at 21:11
@Nyk232 The type command doesn't print out "true". Anyway, did you see this puzzle of mine? I already used those phrases! – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 22:03
@pacoverflow my bad, didn't see them :( I'll think it over some more... – Nyk 232 Jul 18 '15 at 19:34

frodoskywalker · Answer 2 · 2015-07-17T14:36:13.290

14

Rebus #2

A picture is worth a thousand words

Because

You have piped an image (file.png) to wc and asked it to count the words (-w), which returned 1000

Rebus #3

Perpetual motion

Because

You are moving a file forever ('while true')

edited Jul 17 '15 at 14:36

answered Jul 17 '15 at 14:17

frodoskywalker

7,369
1
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49

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 18 '15 at 14:38

10

Answer for #1 :

stereotype

Explanation :

stereo == two channels + type , forcing "output" to both STDERR & STDOUT.

Other rebuses have already been answered.

answered Jul 18 '15 at 14:38

Prem

5,144
2
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55

1

Good job. Since Rebus #1 was the most difficult, you get the checkmark. I wonder how long it would have lasted if I hadn't provided any hints? – pacoverflow Jul 18 '15 at 14:40
1

@pacoverflow , your clue about "one word" did help, and the clue about "10 letters" was helpful to select the one word out of many, starting with "stereo". The other answers acted as clues or inspiration. Nice set of rebuses, and I could solve only 1,2&5, – Prem Jul 18 '15 at 14:50
1

Oh so you did a search on words containing "stereo"? I figured someone would do a search on words containing "type". – pacoverflow Jul 18 '15 at 14:51
@pacoverflow , yes, I went that way because, I initially thought that "type" was used only to generate STDOUT & STDERR so two channels so stereo- (other answers being related to picture&sound&noise), then 10 letters made -type fit. – Prem Jul 18 '15 at 16:33
1

Brilliant! I thought "sound" was significant, but would never have thought about stereo. +1 to you (would be more if I could) – karhell Jul 20 '15 at 06:33

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 17 '15 at 17:13

4

Possible answer for #1

Bleep out (beep out)

Explanation

When you bleep something out the sound goes away, and as karhell was saying the sound isn't a legitimate command

edited Jul 17 '15 at 17:13

Ian MacDonald

12,806
1
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answered Jul 17 '15 at 17:12

Bard

728
7
15

Welcome to Puzzling.SE. Sorry but that is not the correct answer. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 17:14

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 17 '15 at 22:45

Another possible answer for #1:

soundcheck

because

The type command indicates what would happen if the name (or names) given as argument(s) were to be entered at the command line. > file.txt means "write the output of this instruction to a file called "file.txt", and 2> file2.txt means "write any error messages to a file called "file2.txt". Sound engineers often repeat the numbers "one" and "two" when checking microphone levels; perhaps this is what is being referred to.

Not a bad guess, although not what I'm looking for. – pacoverflow Jul 17 '15 at 23:05 — pacoverflow, Jul 17 '15 at 23:05

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 18 '15 at 08:28

1

Possible answer to #1:

Tinnitus

Explanation:

You get a beep, but there's no sound

answered Jul 18 '15 at 08:28

hoffmale

277
2
6

Welcome to Puzzling.SE. Sorry but that is not the correct answer. – pacoverflow Jul 18 '15 at 13:56

Five Linux command line rebus puzzles

6 Answers6