Command Line Tips for Beginners – Getting Started Guide

command line

When I first migrated from Windows to Ubuntu, by far the most daunting thing I had to do was use the command line.

Typing commands is an alien experience when you've only ever been used to pointing and clicking.

When I talk to new Ubuntu users, they are often uneasy with the idea of talking directly to their computer.

Is there a simple and friendly guide to help new users get acquainted with the command line?

Do you have any tips to make the experience easier or more fun?

Best Answer

If you are looking for a good guide to learn the command line, my favorite is LinuxCommand.org

The guide will show you the basics of the command line, and will even guide you into writing useful shell scripts.

That said, most user will not need to use the command line for most day to day operations. I do not think that the command line should discourage users from migrating to Ubuntu. But once you learn the power of the command line, you won't be able to live without it!

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Print numbered arguments in Command Line Tool

My solution (you already know ;) as a function (no need to deal with PATH) to become one-liner:

showargs() { i=1; for f; do printf "arg%d: <%s>\n" $i "$f"; ((i++)); done; }

Syslog – How to Use Syslog for Else Output with Whois Query

Yet another solution:

awk '{ 
      for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) 
        if ($i ~ /^SRC=/) 
          print substr($i, 5) 
    }' /var/log/syslog |
  sort -u |
  while read ip; do
    printf ' === %s ===\n' "$ip"
    whois "$ip"
  done

If you only want to select lines of syslog containing the string INVALID STATE, then the above code can be modified as follows

awk '/INVALID STATE/ { 
      for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) 
        if ($i ~ /^SRC=/) 
          print substr($i, 5) 
    }' /var/log/syslog |
  sort -u |
  while read ip; do
    printf ' === %s ===\n' "$ip"
    whois "$ip"
  done

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Print numbered arguments in Command Line Tool

Syslog – How to Use Syslog for Else Output with Whois Query

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