The only spooky thing is knowing what the package is called.
I remember when i was first playing with Ubuntu, I was like 14, pre unity. I knew I had to install an application via the terminal, but it felt like looking into a dark room. How does it work? where does it look? is it magic? can I just type "apt-get install firefox"? okay that worked, what about this other app, that didn't work, is that the right name? etc
My #1 thing I suggest to newbies is just practice your googling. Knowing how to google a question to find the right forum post makes the biggest difference. Also read the post to understand what you're doing. It's totally possible to copy and paste something nefarious into your terminal. Its rare but does exist.
Fast forward like 13-14 years. Linux is my primary OS, I screw around with internals, I can fix a lot of issues without googling because I know "oh this is broken, this is linked to this so lets just try "turning off and on again" this service.
My #1 thing I suggest to newbies is just practice your googling. Knowing how to google a question to find the right forum post makes the biggest difference.
this applies to all things computer, as well. a lot of the questions users ask i don't know the answer to, they're basically just submitting tickets to have somebody else google the answer for them.
Its impossible to know everything about computers. The most important skill is the ability to find the information. It can be simple like a stack overflow post, or advanced like looking into the kernel source to see what it does under the hood.
Most package managers have tab complete, just type something close and hit tab a couple times and it'll spit out a list of programs that match that search. Then just scroll through until you find the one you need and hit ctrl-c to exit the list and up arrow to reload the last command then type in until hitting tab once completes the command
I think as power users we forget when we first learned "up arrow" in the terminal. I learned that shit painfully late somehow. There's all these small usage things that are rarely explained. I learned tab complete and up arrow from a TA or someone in a club going "wtf are you doing, do this" and having my mind blown.
The only spooky thing is knowing what the package is called.
I remember when i was first playing with Ubuntu, I was like 14, pre unity. I knew I had to install an application via the terminal, but it felt like looking into a dark room. How does it work? where does it look? is it magic? can I just type "apt-get install firefox"? okay that worked, what about this other app, that didn't work, is that the right name? etc
My #1 thing I suggest to newbies is just practice your googling. Knowing how to google a question to find the right forum post makes the biggest difference. Also read the post to understand what you're doing. It's totally possible to copy and paste something nefarious into your terminal. Its rare but does exist.
Fast forward like 13-14 years. Linux is my primary OS, I screw around with internals, I can fix a lot of issues without googling because I know "oh this is broken, this is linked to this so lets just try "turning off and on again" this service.
this applies to all things computer, as well. a lot of the questions users ask i don't know the answer to, they're basically just submitting tickets to have somebody else google the answer for them.
Its impossible to know everything about computers. The most important skill is the ability to find the information. It can be simple like a stack overflow post, or advanced like looking into the kernel source to see what it does under the hood.
Most package managers have tab complete, just type something close and hit tab a couple times and it'll spit out a list of programs that match that search. Then just scroll through until you find the one you need and hit ctrl-c to exit the list and up arrow to reload the last command then type in until hitting tab once completes the command
I think as power users we forget when we first learned "up arrow" in the terminal. I learned that shit painfully late somehow. There's all these small usage things that are rarely explained. I learned tab complete and up arrow from a TA or someone in a club going "wtf are you doing, do this" and having my mind blown.
The best part is being able to scroll through commands
My favorite one, ctrl+r to search bash history, more ctrl+r to go through them. There's more to it but that's how I primarily use it.