To those of you just starting with Linux

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

I've recently put Linux on my laptop and for all intents and purposes this is my first Linux experience.

For awhile I tried just copy-pasting code into the command line from help forums because I had no idea what I was doing. I've been spending some of my free time the last couple of days trying to remedy my piss-poor performance when it comes to using the command line.

I recently found this site (http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/index.html). This has been immensely helpful in going through and explaining the main/basic commands of Unix/Linux, and I suggest anyone who is starting out on this journey, to read.

2

Oohw thank you very much! I'll read it, very interesting!

3

tips:

1. "man" command. It brings up a full manual on any command. For instance, for the "grep" command, you bring up the manual by entering " man grep" (BTW, the oldest joke in the unix world is "man woman");

2. "--help" or "-h" argument. It brings up a short overview of syntax, parameters and arguments of a command, with a use example. For instance "grep --help" will bring up the help text for the "grep" command.

4

That's a brilliant joke! Would you mind giving some history class about that?

5

Impossible, the UNIX-response to "man woman" is very accurate:

[root@localhost ~]# man woman


No manual entry for woman


It's a fact of life. Men can't live without and often dedicate their lives to the creatures and creations that want to torment them with loud whining noises, draw their blood, propel them with vigour into all kinds of positions, and kill them if they fuck up... yet have never succeeded in writing a manual on any of them...

examples:

[root@localhost ~]# man car


No manual entry for car


[root@localhost ~]# man guitar


No manual entry for guitar


[root@localhost ~]# man sword


No manual entry for sword


[root@localhost ~]# man motorcycle


No manual entry for motorcycle


[root@localhost ~]# man rocket


No manual entry for rocket


yet:

 

[root@localhost ~]# man man

gives:

MAN(1)                                                                                 Manual pager utils                                                                                 MAN(1)

NAME
       man - an interface to the on-line reference manuals

SYNOPSIS
       man  [-C  file]  [-d]  [-D]  [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] [-S list] [-e extension] [-i|-I] [--regex|--wildcard] [--names-only] [-a] [-u]
       [--no-subpages] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [--no-hyphenation] [--no-justification] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]] [-X[dpi]] [-Z] [[section] page ...] ...
       man -k [apropos options] regexp ...
       man -K [-w|-W] [-S list] [-i|-I] [--regex] [section] term ...
       man -f [whatis options] page ...
       man -l [-C file] [-d] [-D] [--warnings[=warnings]] [-R encoding] [-L locale] [-P pager] [-r prompt] [-7] [-E encoding] [-p string] [-t] [-T[device]] [-H[browser]]  [-X[dpi]]  [-Z]  file
       ...
       man -w|-W [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ...
       man -c [-C file] [-d] [-D] page ...
       man [-?V]

DESCRIPTION
       man  is  the  system's  manual pager.

Each page argument given to man is normally the name of a program, utility or function.


That is remarkably accurate also.

 

6

Linux is great I think. curious but what distro did you decide to put on your laptop? I have used Ubuntu (not a fan), Kali Linux (great for penetration testing), and Linux Mint (personal favorite).

7

Thank you I will give it a try! 

8

Hmm will be a nice read for slow times :) Yet another awesome addition to the growing linux community :)