by Michael Peyton

Created on: September 18, 2011

As a new GNU/Linux user you may have heard of the powerful tools available from the command line. Though typing commands into a terminal may be an unfamiliar way to interact with a computer for those who have come from other operating systems, it is important not to fear the shell. If you plan on maximizing and enjoying your experience with GNU/Linux you must embrace the shell.

Most modern distributions of Linux can be installed and configured utilizing graphical menus and prompts similar to other popular operating systems. Many office, personal, and administrative functions can be performed in a graphical desktop environment but to take full advantage of Linux's powerful tools you must be familiar with using shells.

The first time a new Linux user opens a terminal and performs some function using a shell, it should be to familiarize oneself with the basic commands used to communicate with the shell. The most common shell installed on Linux operating systems is the BASH shell. There is a great beginner's guide for the BASH shell available from the Linux Documentation Project. It can be found here http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/in dex.html.

New users may also be required to use the shell if they run into trouble. Most common hardware devices such as keyboards and mice are compatible with modern Linux distributions and require no configuration. Other hardware devices may require special setup to work with Linux. If you encounter issues with your hardware, you can probably find the solution in a forum or community web page for your particular distribution. The solution will most likely require you to manually enter commands into the shell or copy and paste commands into the shell.

In order to take advantage of some of Linux's legendary tools you will have to use the shell. Linux's powerful search utilities are very well known but only available to those who dare to use the shell. These include the find utility which is used to locate files in a directory or tree and the grep utility which searches for strings inside files. To learn about these functions and more you can read their documentation. Man pages or manual pages are included with most distributions of Linux. They can be accessed from the shell using the command “man” followed by the command you need help with. For example you could type in “man find” to learn more about the find command.

Your distribution most likely has a package manager that can be used to add, remove, and update software and libraries. The package manager is limited by the repositories that are available. You may require software that is not available from repositories for your package manager. In this case you may have to install software from source code. As you may have guessed this is done via the shell using the tar and make utilities.

There are many more reasons why you would use a shell such as software development and performing administrative and security tasks like checking log files. Therefore, the sooner you take the plunge and begin learning how to use a shell, the more enjoyable your Linux experience will be. What separates Linux from other operating systems is the freedom and power you have at your fingertips. In order to enjoy that freedom and power, you must make an effort to learn new skills which will increase your productivity as well as your enjoyment.

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