I finally started learning Linux!
Over the weekend I was able to dual boot my PC to run Ubuntu desktop alongside Windows 10. It has been a very interesting experience. The installation process is well laid out on the Ubuntu website.
As captivating as the GNOME desktop is (GNOME is the default desktop that Ubuntu runs), I found myself typing out commands to get accustomed to the command line.
Here are a list of 7 commands I typed several times today.
1. ls – short for list. This command prints the contents of a directory. It can take arguments such as -l (long) or -all (to show all properties). I like to run it with the -l argument because it lists contents in a structured format and details of when it was created.
2. pwd – Print Working Directory. This command prints the absolute path that you are at the moment. The path is absolute because it is relative to the root directory. A sample path would read – /home/Blogher/Documents. Where / is root.
3. cd – Change Directory. Running cd would change the directory from one directory to another if specified. This command only works on the directory as you cannot cd into an image or a document file.
4. sudo – this command does the same as run as administrator in Windows. This is used to grant admin access when performing an operation. It requires an argument as it can not execute on its own.
5. man – sometimes when I feel like crying out for help, the man command comes to the rescue. man is short for manual and it shows possible arguments that a command can be run with. Running man ls in the terminal shows arguments that can be combined with the ls command.
6. less– used to edit files in the terminal. If I have a file named cards.csv, running less cards.csv would open the editor for the file to be edited. ctrl + z would exit from less.
7. nano – also used to edit files in the terminal. nano takes the filename as an argument and you can easily edit your document. You can easily exit nano by pressing ctrl + x.
Please note that Linux commands are case sensitive, therefore ls is not the same as LS and pwd differ from PWD.