1. Is the master private key the same as the seed? If no then:
2. How to use the `getmasterprivate` in a linux command line, can somebody explain the syntax how to use it? For example if I put my wallet in the /home folder, how to retrieve it's master private key?
1. Strictly speaking it's not the same. The seed mnemonic is run through hashing functions and then out comes the master private key. So the seed is used to derive the master private key which is used to derive all the address specific private keys.
seed mnemonic > master private key > nearly unlimited addresses and associated key pairs.
2.
electrum getmasterprivate -w /path/to/wallet_file
Yes thank you, I have figured it out now.
Well it's run through hashing functions so I wouldn't say no information is lost. By definition hashing functions will take input of arbitrary size and output a number of a fixed size. You can't convert the output of the hashing function back into its input. That's why they are also called trap door functions.
I believe that you can generate the same wallet from either the seed or the xprivkey
The way I understand is that the xprivkey and the seed are both substitutes, so it doesnt matter which one you have, both can recover the wallet.
However the seed supercedes the xprivkey, and the xprivkey can't be reversed into the seed. But the seed only exists to be easy to remember, so logically you want to use the seed instead of the master private. I just need the xprivkey command to test something.