this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Most terminals start a shell as the first program, so you're not really learning "Terminal" so much as whatever program it starts first. Bash is a pretty common shell, so you might want to search for things like "Bash examples" to get a feel for it.
If that's too simple, or you blast past that, then reading bash's manual might give you some more ideas. The
man
command is your friend. The manuals are not necessarily quite so friendly, but they're aimed at someone who's already somewhat competent.Anyway, here's one link from a Bash examples search I did: https://linuxsimply.com/bash-scripting-tutorial/basics/examples/
If Bash isn't what you have where you are, substitute its name instead. Zsh and Fish are pretty popular. There are others, but I don't think any mainstream Linux uses them by default.
To check what shell you're using try an
echo $0
orecho $SHELL
.Finally, a bit of advice: Don't go running commands you see on the Internet unless you're sure what they're going to do is something you have no problem with. And be careful with copy/pasting from web pages you don't know or trust - I can't vouch for the examples in the link I gave earlier, for example. It's possible to make things look like a completely innocent command but when pasted does something else entirely.
:(){:|:&};:
This is the sort of thing I was talking about with "Don't go running commands [...] unless you're sure what they're going to do [...]"
I did a breakdown of this one on the snoosite back in the day. Searching "fork bomb" on YouTube is probably a better way to get that breakdown these days.
I’ll definitely give
man
some more love. Thanks for the adviceCheck out
tldr
as well. I generally use it far more often thanman
Or teeldeer, it's just tldr rewritten in Rust. But it uses the same tldr pages.
These 0.00X - 0.0X second improvements always remind me of this meme:
Will probably still use it instead though.