Practice I guess. Especially using cli for specific tasks that is done more efficiently on there than the gui.
Moving files using regex for example is useful. Or finding files with specific phrases in them. Stuff like that
Okay, this is not Linux-specific, but it’s about a transferable skill:
What helped me get comfortable and learn a lot of basics was setting up NetBSD. The basic install throws you into a basic command line, with no graphical interface installed and not even the internet configured. But the online guide for setting the system up is incredibly well-written and teaches you all the concepts you need to know.
After doing this, I was familiar with a larger set of terminal commands, knew how to use vi, had a bunch of practice setting up config files in CLI and even finally learned how pipes work. It’s a very enjoyable experience, the guide is so good I didn’t feel overwhelmed once and anything you have to look up is tied to a problem you’re solving (like cursor movement in vi).
It also teaches you how NetBSD is structured. It’s not Linux, but similar enough to understand a lot of how and why things are done in Linux systems
What helps me is to understand what commands acronym means. For instance cp for copy, mkdir for make directory, blkid for block id, ls for list (not too sure about actual meaning for s) and so on!
Nice tips about ctrl+r to search in command history. Was not aware it existed!
‘ls’ is an abbreviation for ‘list’, not an acronym. Like copy -> cp, and the other keystroke saving abbreviations.
pwd for password, man for mansplain, and dd for destroy disk
Hey, the first two don’t sound quite right
In my experience repetition helped. Not memorization, but more like muscle memory.
Also, ensuring to never copy and paste commands but to type them in manually yourself. It’s hard to enforce this on yourself, but worth it.
I appreciate that this article started with “ways to reduce risk” because that’s an extremely valid concern and tied to why you shouldn’t ever copy and paste. The one time in my early Linux forays where I copied and pasted I wiped the wrong drive, it definitely taught me to always manually type it in and not get too lazy, because what you copied might not match what you want to do exactly.
Also, ensuring to never copy and paste commands but to type them in manually yourself. It’s hard to enforce this on yourself, but worth it.
“Command: sido not found…”
As a fan of german rap this gave me a good chuckle. Thx.
Really specific here, but font control.
Us folks with dyslexia in its various expressions have trouble with command line. If you can’t read a specific command, good luck ever getting comfortable with it. You can’t error check yourself, so until you build up memory, you’re kinda screwed if you can’t use the fonts that are available.
To things that helps no mater your skill level the tab key is your best friend and man pages are great but if those are overwhelming install the package tldr then you can use the command tldr and the command you are trying to run to give you helpful examples of how to use that command.
Also old users don’t remember long commands if we use a command more than once. You save it to your bash alias file to create your own commands.
tldr is great, sometimes you can’t remember the exact syntax for a certain command and just need a quick reminder as well.
Play around in a virtual machine so you don’t have to worry about messing anything up. Start with the basics such as navigating through directories and creating, editing, and moving files. If you break something, just restore a snapshot.
The way I usually start teaching using the console to my (very much non-tech) students is set up a safe container and then let them type whatever, invariably generating a lot of error messages. Then I challenge them to generate different error messages, “gotta catch em all” style. Then we talk about the error messages and what they might mean. After this exercise they usually get the basic idea of command – response, what to look out for and how to compose valid commands.
That’s clever
Or just use Time Shift or a similar tool. I broke my first linux install like a dozen times, and I learned so much about how my computer operates in the process.
Colors. And a nice, readable font. Make your terminal pretty so you feel good every time you interact with it. Think about window dimensions (I personally always find the standard 80x24 too small), maybe set up some manual tiling so you can have two terminal windows fill your screen. Use the keyboard to move around your desktops.
But mostly, colors.
And the message “DON’T PANIC” in big friendly letters.
And make sure you know where your towel is.
Colors and ASCII graphics.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Or fancy.
But breaking things up so it’s readable helps massively.
Virtual environment? Taking notes of what they did?
Anyway, tell them it’s okay you experiment and mess things up. Show them how to backup their important work. Then walk them through inevitably having to reinstall their distro.
They’ll learn that you can just keep moving forward, fixing and learning as you go.
Good cushions
I’m trying to make it a regular thing but my problem is I like to get my hands dirty by working on projects. The snag is that I get stuck a lot due to not knowing basics. My personality gets in the way = get dirty and learn fast(not necessarily shortcuts). Maybe I haven’t found that right source to learn that not too beginner and not too intermediate. Maybe a cool cluster of small projects to setup your computer then environment to setting up projects to do your everyday life takes to what you really want to learn.
Knowing:
- pwd, ls, cd, cat/less, cp, mv, rm, rmdir, rm -rf, ls -lah
- command --help
- man command | grep thing I care about
- bonus points if you have tldr command installed
/to search man pages was a gamechanger
using tldr instead of man 90% of the time to preserve your sanity
🎉 COLORS ! READABILITY ! CONCISION ! CONCRETE EXAMPLES ! 🎉
tldr is very useful
Also, knowing vim keys is useful because a lot of terminal programs use them.
tl;dr: Gradual exposure over time.
I got used to it through work, as I had to ssh into a server to run simulations. That mainly involved navigating the file system and text editing (which I used vim for) to make some basic Python and bash scripts, including sed and awk. The latter two I never got comfortable using, and haven’t really touched since.
I was using macOS at the time, and after using that for work, the terminal in macOS got at first less scary and then a preferred way of accomplishing certain tasks. On my work Windows computer I started missing having a proper terminal around, and I eventually found Cygwin and later Git Bash to give me that terminal fix in Windows as well. Especially with the latter I noticed few differences and could use it to a large extent as I would have on my then Macbook.
2-3 years ago I was in need of a new computer, and at that point a laptop with Linux on it was not a very scary prospect. That is by no way saying I went into Linux as an expert, far from it, and I am still very much a newbie - but opening the terminal to work with things is not at all a barrier, which helps a lot if you use Linux and want to be able to do some changes from the defaults. If you don’t want that, I think you can go far these days without opening the terminal, but it is certainly a good skill to have.
I have no clue… I grew up on Windows 3.11 and I thought Windows was kinda lame while MS-DOS was the coolest thing ever because you typed things like magic spells 😅
This right here (more or less - first home PC was Win95, but it still relied pretty heavily on DOS, esp for games). I loved the RPGs where you typed in your actions, too.
