Linux Series Part-2
In this article, you will learn the installation process of Ubuntu, some basic commands with full descriptive explanation and you will also learn about shortcut keys which save your life. This article gives insights about helpful pages like manual and help pages.
Before reading this article, refer to our Linux Basics-1.
Must-read Note!!!: Don’t be afraid of reading a bunch of lines on our website. It’ll be worth reading.
Furthermore, every week’s stuff explained by using Linux distro UBUNTU.
Installing UBUNTU:
You can download Ubuntu desktop and replace your current operating system whether it is MAC or Windows OS, or, run Ubuntu alongside it or you have another option installing Linux inside windows using a virtual box. The virtual box is open-source virtualization software provided by Oracle. It offers you to install other operating systems on virtual machines. But it has limitations like it is recommended that your system should have 4GB RAM to operate at a good performance from the virtual operating system.
Opening a Terminal: By entering the terminal in the search bar on the desktop. It finds the terminal and you can go and explore. Another way of opening is to press CTRL+ALT+T, which keyboard shortcut.
What is Shell?
Shell is a computer program or command interpreter in OS like Unix/Linux that executes other programs. Shell provides the interface to computer users so that users can run different utilities by giving some data input.
The shell interprets the commands which the user entered. It is for running programs, operations with file systems, manage text files, etc.
Note: When running the command. Make sure all commands which you enter are in lower case, before pressing the Enter to run it.
Understanding Users and permissions:
• Linux is the system that everyone using a system has their own username and password.
• Every file belongs to a user, a group, and given attributes like reading, writing, and executing for users, groups, and others.
• A file or folder can have permissions that allow to read, write and execute and allowing groups to read, write and execute, and those who don’t have permissions can’t read the file.
Basic commands to start with:
- pwd: It is abbreviated as a print working directory. It is the directory where the user is working currently. Every time you log in, shell sets to its home directory. If you create, edit, delete any files, the shell itself assumes that you are using the current working directory unless you change the directory.
Next, our step is changing the directory.
- cd: changing directory. We can make directories management using this command.
- ls: list of files
it prints the file names which are present in the working directory. We have an option regarding this command. The options are denoted with “-” as a prefix. See the following examples.
- Examples:
- ls –a: Here, -a shows the list of files that were hidden.
- ls –ltr: Here, -ltr shows the files which are present in the directory with permissions, owner, groups, and others.
- passwd: This helps us in changing passwd. If you forget the password, then you should change it with the help of ROOT. The root user can change the password for any user.
- rmdir: To remove directories.
- rm: To remove or delete files. It has options like –rf where r means recursively and f means forcibly.
- Example: rm –rf rrr
Key Combinations in the shell: Try out these which are very helpful
Knowing `HELP`ful pages:
- man: In Linux, man stands for manual pages for a command. Since it is also a command, we can do (eg. $ man man). Manual pages are well structured and give out and out descriptions to command if the command is available.
Type the command man man and hit ENTER
Staring at manual pages gives you fear because is source documentation of command looks clumsy. Don’t be afraid of reading the man pages. You’ll be faster in reading man pages after you are getting into the intermediate stage.
Scroll down window with spacebar and scroll up with key b. You can quit manual pages by pressing key q and you can ask for help by pressing key h, which tells movement of pages, searching between lines, jumping of lines, etc. You can understand by keen learning.
- — help: On using this command, presents you a short description of the command that you’re searching for. Not only description shows the list of available options. The picture showing the output of cd as an example.
- info: In addition to these, you can also read info pages about a command. It is an alternative page to man which presents information about a command in GNU Emacs. The picture showing the output of cd as an example.
- Note: Emacs is a text editor in Linux. We have text editors like nano, vi, emacs, etc.