WHAT IS LINUX TERMINAL ?

 LINUX TERMINAL

Linux is an operating system's kernel. You might have heard of UNIX. Well, Linux is a UNIX clone. But it was actually created by Linus Torvalds from Scratch. Linux is free and open-source, that means that you can simply change anything in Linux and redistribute it in your own name! There are several Linux Distributions, commonly called “distros”.

• Ubuntu Linux
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Linux Mint
• Debian
• Fedora

Linux Shell or “Terminal”

So, basically, a shell is a program that receives commands from the user and gives it to the OS to process, and it shows the output. Linux's shell is its main part. Its distros come in GUI (graphical user interface), but basically, Linux has a CLI (command line interface). In this tutorial, we are going to cover the basic commands that we use in the shell of Linux.

To open the terminal, press Ctrl+Alt+T in Ubuntu, or press Alt+F2, type in gnome-terminal, and press enter. In Raspberry Pi, type in lxterminal. There is also a GUI way of taking it, but this is better!

This tutorial, which is the first in a series that teaches Linux basics to get new users on their feet, covers getting started with the terminal, the Linux command line, and executing commands. If you are new to Linux, you will want to familiarize yourself with the terminal, as it is the standard way to interact with a Linux server. Using the command line may seem like a daunting task but it is actually very easy if you start with the basics, and build your skills from there.

Terminal Emulator

A terminal emulator is a program that allows the use of the terminal in a graphical environment. As most people use an OS with a graphical user interface (GUI) for their day-to-day computer needs, the use of a terminal emulator is a necessity for most Linux server users.
Here are some free, commonly-used terminal emulators by operating system:

• Mac OS X: Terminal (default), iTerm 2

• Windows: PuTTY

• Linux: Terminal, KDE Konsole, XTerm

Each terminal emulator has its own set of features, but all of the listed ones work great and are easy to use.

The Shell

In a Linux system, the shell is a command-line interface that interprets a user's commands and script files, and tells the server's operating system what to do with them. There are several shells that are widely used, such as Bourne shell (sh) and C shell (csh). Each shell has its own feature set and intricacies, regarding how commands are interpreted, but they all feature input and output redirection, variables, and condition-testing, among other things.

This tutorial was written using the Bourne-Again shell, usually referred to as bash, which is the default shell for most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, CentOS, and RedHat.

Linux Commands

Basic Commands

1. pwd — When you first open the terminal, you are in the home directory of your user. To know which directory you are in, you can use the “pwd”command. It gives us the absolute path, which means the path that starts from the root. The root is the base of the Linux file system. It is denoted by a forward slash( / ). The user directory is usually something like "/home/username".

2. ls — Use the "ls" command to know what files are in the directory you are in. You can see all the hidden files by using the command “ls -a”.

3. cd — Use the "cd" command to go to a directory. For example, if you are in the home folder, and you want to go to the downloads folder, then you can type in “cd Downloads”. Remember, this command is case sensitive, and you have to type in the name of the folder exactly as it is. But there is a problem with these commands. Imagine you have a folder named “Raspberry Pi”. In this case, when you type in “cd Raspberry Pi”, the shell will take the second argument of the command as a different one, so you will get an error saying that the directory does not exist. Here, you can use a backward slash. That is, you can use “cd Raspberry\ Pi” in this case. Spaces are denoted like this: If you just type “cd” and press enter, it takes you to the home directory. To go back from a folder to the folder before that, you can type “cd ..” . The two dots represent back.

4. mkdir & rmdir — Use the mkdir command when you need to create a folder or a directory. For example, if you want to make a directory called “DIY”, then you can type “mkdir DIY”. Remember, as told before, if you want to create a directory named “DIY Hacking”, then you can type “mkdir DIY\ Hacking”. Use rmdir to delete a directory. But rmdir can only be used to delete an empty directory. To delete a directory containing files, use rm.

5. rm - Use the rm command to delete files and directories.  Use "rm -r" to delete just the directory. It deletes both the folder and the files it contains when using only the rm command.

6. touch — The touch command is used to create a file. It can be anything, from an empty txt file to an empty zip file. For example, “touch new.txt”.

7. man & --help — To know more about a command and how to use it, use the man command. It shows the manual pages of the command. For example, “man cd” shows the manual pages of the cd command. Typing in the command name and the argument helps it show which ways the command can be used (e.g., cd –help).

8. cp — Use the cp command to copy files through the command line. It takes two arguments: The first is the location of the file to be copied, the second is where to copy.

9. mv — Use the mv command to move files through the command line. We can also use the mv command to rename a file. For example, if we want to rename the file “text” to “new”, we can use “mv text new”. It takes the two arguments, just like the cp command.

10. locate — The locate command is used to locate a file in a Linux system, just like the search command in Windows. This command is useful when you don't know where a file is saved or the actual name of the file. Using the -i argument with the command helps to ignore the case (it doesn't matter if it is uppercase or lowercase). So, if you want a file that has the word “hello”, it gives the list of all the files in your Linux system containing the word "hello" when you type in “locate -i hello”. If you remember two words, you can separate them using an asterisk (*). For example, to locate a file containing the words "hello" and "this", you can use the command “locate -i *hello*this”.