Best way to learn the Terminal?

Hey guys, I was just wondering what the best way to learn to navigate ubuntu's OS using mostly the terminal would be. I'm interested in getting used to using unix commands and such. i was just wonder how I should go about learning how to do this?????

for my experience best way to learn linux terminal is facing with problems = archlinux install or gentoo install.Also unpluggin mouse will do trick and i am serious about this.

PS : Also owning a server helps A LOT.

ok, im a noob what is "archlinux install or gentoo install"? just different versions of the OS?

As far as owning a server... Linux can virtual turn any computer into a server. I really started to learn the CLI after I installed Ubuntu Server edition. I also read plenty online tutorials. I have also picked up a couple of those cheap small books from Amazon.

I just reached over and one I have is "Linux Pocket Guide". It covers Fedora Linux but most of the commands are the same. A quick flip through the book and it basically only covers command line.

This doesn't directly address your issue, but if you want to get more comfortable with using the terminal, install Yakuake and bind the shortcut key to F1.

I wouldn't bother using the terminal most of the time if I didn't have Yakuake to make it so easy :)

Check out linux from scratch. //http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ Probably not the best way to learn the terminal though.

Maybe this would be a better place to start:http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php

As binbash said, learning from experience is the best way to go.

I would start with learning how to change directories with the

cd

command; for example, you always start in the Terminal in your /home directory. To change directories to, say, your Documents folder, go into a Terminal and type

cd Documents

Then learn how to install/remove packages with

apt-get

apt-get is a command line package management system...the non-GUI form of Synaptic Package Manager. For example, if you want to install pacman, type

sudo apt-get install pacman

It will ask for your password, and when you type it in, it won't show up...this is normal. Just type it and press enter. You now have pacman!

Also, be sure to learn the importance, power, and general use of

sudo

sudo (*s*uper*u*ser *do*) is a command which allows you to run something as root (or all powerful administrator); it is a common command (apt-get requires it so that only you can install software on your system since you are the only one with your password, etc), but is very dangerous if used improperly (you can literally erase your entire system with one command).

After that, you learn by running into problems and fixing them with new commands (we are always around to help if you have trouble:))

Also, _this_ thread helps a lot if you aren't sure where to start.

Good luck! -nkri

Basicly, just do it (that's how I learned DOS) at least Linux has the manpages

Girya said: Maybe this would be a better place to start:http://linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php

This is always one of my suggestions. The other best place is directly from our own Help.

best way to learn the terminal is to use it

just open the terminal and start using it

its really easy to use the terminal once you know a few basic commands

you could learn by setting yourself some goals and trying to accomplish them

for instance you can say i want to be able to move this file from this directory to that one using only the command line

then you search the internet for the command to move files from one point to another in linux (the command is mv by the way)

then you try moving the file using your newly discovered command

you fail

but you read some more and learn some more and try again this time correcting your previous mistakes

and each time you mess something up you learn what not to do the next time

eventually your a pro

also the most important command youl ever know is the man command

you use the man command to read the manual pages for other commands

for instance if i wanted to learn about the mv command i would type this

man mv

this is especially important with certain commands where you need to know the options to use

for instance if you want to remove a file you can use the rm command like this

rm /home/tj/123.mp3

but if you wanted to remove an entire directory you would need to add the -r option to the command (r stands for recursively)

rm -r /home/tj/Music

another thing you will need to know about is privileges

to make any kind of system wide changes you will need to have administrator (root) privileges

to get root privileges in ubuntu you will use the sudo command before the others (i think sudo means something like superuser do)

sudo rm -r /home/tj/Music

EDIT: damn it looks like i took too long typing this, somebody already beat me to it

Pick up a book on system administration, or a Linux+ study guide, it doesn't have to be new. Sit in front of your computer, read through the book and try the commands in the terminal.

Instead of downloading .deb files, download the .tar file, maybe even try to build apps from source, that is how i am learning

xjcannonx said: Instead of downloading .deb files, download the .tar file, maybe even try to build apps from source, that is how i am learning

This is a good way of learning, but I recommend against it since compiling from source does not integrate the software into GNOME (or KDE, XFCE, whatever you use) in the same way as .deb's. It is, of course, personal preference, but if you compile something from source and later want to remove it, you have to find all the files and delete them manually, unless the package came with an uninstaller script; if you want to remove a .deb, you just go into Synaptic or use apt-get and don't have to worry about fragmented files and the like.

Good luck! -nkri

if youre new to linux, im gonna say gentoo and arch linux is a no go. you can learn the terminal on ubuntu without the headaches.

Blackdragon1400 said: i was just wonder how I should go about learning how to do this????? There are just two commands you have to remember:

• apropos
• man

That's it. I mean it :D

Everything else will come from there.

Let's assume you want to reconfigure your network card for some reason ... Sure, you could use the "network-manager" icon to do this for you but you said you want to use the command line? Fine, so let's open a terminal and ask the terminal what it knows about networking: ```

apropos network

[COLOR="Red"]/etc/network/interfaces (5) [interfaces] - network interface configuration for ifup and ifdown[/COLOR] aseqnet (1) - ALSA sequencer connectors over network avahi-autoipd (8) - IPv4LL network address configuration daemon ctstat (8) - unified linux network statistics dhclient-script (8) - DHCP client network configuration script display-tele (7) - Forwards the display over a network [COLOR="Red"]ifconfig (8) - configure a network interface[/COLOR] [B]ifdown (8) - take a network interface down ifup (8) - bring a network interface up[/B] interfaces (5) - network interface configuration for ifup and ifdown iwconfig (8) - configure a wireless network interface iwgetid (8) - Report ESSID, NWID or AP/Cell Address of wireless network iwpriv (8) - configure optionals (private) parameters of a wireless... lanmap (8) - A program that passively listens for any activity on y... lnstat (8) - unified linux network statistics monkey-srv (1) - monkey-bubble network server mtr (8) - a network diagnostic tool nameif (8) - name network interfaces based on MAC addresses netdevice (7) - Low level access to Linux network devices netstat (8) - Print network connections, routing tables, interface s... network-admin (1) - Network Administration Tool NetworkManager (8) - network management daemon networks (5) - network name information nm-ppp-starter (1) - PPP connection helper for NetworkManager nm-tool (1) - utility to report NetworkManager state nm-vpn-properties (1) - Network management framework nmap (1) - Network exploration tool and security / port scanner nstat (8) - network statistics tools. pabrowse (1) - List PulseAudio sound servers on the network ping (8) - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts ping6 (8) - send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts pngtopnm (1) - convert a Portable Network Graphics file into portable... pnmtopng (1) - convert a portable anymap into a Portable Network Grap... rtacct (8) - network statistics tools. rtstat (8) - unified linux network statistics sane-net (5) - SANE network backend saned (8) - SANE network daemon services (5) - Internet network services list slattach (8) - attach a network interface to a serial line smbtree (1) - A text based smb network browser tcpdump (8) - dump traffic on a network tracepath (8) - traces path to a network host discovering MTU along th... tracepath6 (8) - traces path to a network host discovering MTU along th... traceroute6 (8) - traces path to a network host traceroute6.iputils (8) - traces path to a network host wget (1) - The non-interactive network downloader.

Do you see the stuff I highlighted? As you can see the shell is far from being cryptic ... as a matter of fact it will easily tell you the commands you'd need to type in if you ask nicely.

So now that we know which commands we would likely need to change a network configuration ... how precisely do we use those commands? Enter the **"man"** command, short for "**man**ual".

Chances are that each of the above commands that "apropos" spit out has a manual page attached to it. All you need to do is to ask "man" to show you the manual of the stuff you're interested in.

BTW, see those numbers in the brackets in above output? That's the chapter in the manual. Sometimes there are C procedures (yes, Linux includes programming manuals too!) and/or system variables that have the same name as a system command and the result might be ambiguous. Example - the "halt" command: ```
> apropos halt
halt (5)             - variables that affect the behavior of the shutdown scripts
halt (8)             - reboot or stop the system

So in that case I'd add the number to what I need to know:

man 8 halt

Back to topic: Armed with "apropos" and "man" you can pretty much find anything you want and do anything you want via the shell.

Just keep using it and you will notice how all of a sudden you will know some commands by heart ... sooner or later using the shell becomes natural.

But as you can see ... _The shell is friendly._ It tells you all you need or want to know if you ask nicely. It's not that "cryptic" or "hard to learn" at all. There is no reason to fear it.

The best way to learn? Practice. Of course, the suggestions the other guys made are good too, but practice is the key. If you type (or even copy) one command into the terminal and say "ooohh. that was neat" and move on to the next command, what did you learn?

The best way to learn is to sit down, take a command, find out what the command does (by reading the manual), looking at the options (-x -y -z), understanding what they do, and practice using the command.

Compiling programs can teach you about compiling and learning how the programs work, but if you are just beginning at this with no patience for it, you will quickly become discouraged, even as I was.

Another way to learn, is to force yourself use the terminal for most daily tasks (no, I don't mean living in the CLI, like some of us challenge others to do). Just learning how to open Firefox, pidgin, and being able to kill them from the terminal is building your knowledge.

Using it for everything possible until you get comfortable with it. Once you do, you will notice it faster than using the gui for most tasks.

Take a look at this:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

So I have the "man" manual up. As an example suppose I do exactly what I *think* it says to do for a particular option:

Under synopsis, it says:

mv [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST
mv [OPTION]... SOURCE... DIRECTORY
mv [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY SOURCE...

So I would try the first, using arbitrary locations

mv --backup...[-T] /home /home/alpha

the second

mv --backup.../home... /home/alpha

the third

mv --backup...-t /home /home/alpha...

My point is that the instructions are not always clear for the command, despite that the syntax could be learned if a program was to be *written*. For some reason, even though I am following the instructions, my submission does not seem correct. If I were to try this, how would it be correctly coded(if you recognize what I would be trying to do)? Also, is Bash space-sensitive?

treepolitik said:

My point is that the instructions are not always clear for the command, despite that the syntax could be learned if a program was to be *written*. For some reason, even though I am following the instructions, my submission does not seem correct. If I were to try this, how would it be correctly coded(if you recognize what I would be trying to do)? Also, is Bash space-sensitive?

You are absolutely right. The man pages are less than perfectly understandable. They are also a helluvalot better than the DOS equivalent... And yes, bash is space sensitive. a space is interpreted kinda like a \ is in a DOS shell. It matters. Syntax is the toughest part of the shell, IMO. Just use it, and it will come.

#-o

hint: try 'man man' ;)