Intro to Linux

Hopefully you already have been exposed to Linux for a while in the Computer Science department.

However, since there is no real hard requirement for Linux in the department, you might be lacking some experience / exposure, or just need a reference or refresher.

Even for experienced Linux users, hopefully this document can serve as a reference or help accomplish things more easily.

Terminal

You will spend a lot of time in the terminal, therefore it is good to be aquainted with some basics and helpful hints

Autocomplete

In the terminal, many people waste a lot of time typing out entire commands.

The first thing to learn is that the terminal can autocomplete commands and directories for you. All that is needed is to:

• start a command or path
• press tab
• Let the terminal complete the command or path
• If it doesn't complete it press tab again, it will list the alternatives.
• Type only the next letter that is needed to differentiate between the alternatives
• press tab again and repeat the process until you have your command

Note that this works for commands, and sometimes subcommands, but not always parameters to those commands. But I would always error on the side of trying it out, since it saves so much time.

Navigation

In the terminal you navigate around directories on your computer using the following commands:

• cd /path/to/directory changes directory to the new one
  • In order to navigate to a relative path omit the leading /
  • To navigate to a directory relative to your home directory start the path with ~/
  • To navigate to home directory, you can omit the path entirely e.g. cd
  • To navigate up a directory, add two dots ../
• ls to list files and directories in the current directory
• cwd to check what the current working directory is

Manuals

man command will give you the manual for the command, and teach you what it can do and what options it has.

To exit the manual press q, to scroll press up or down keys or page up/page down.

To search press / and then start typing, press enter to start the search and n to go to the next match