6 Best Free Bash & Shell scripting Courses to Learn in 2024

image_credit — Educative (bash for programmers)

Hello guys, if you want to learn Bash & Shell scripting in 2024 and looking for free Bash scripting online courses then you have come to the right place. Earlier, I have shared the best Shell Scripting courses and Linux Command courses and today, I am going to share free bash scripting courses for beginners.

While the importance of Linux commands is well known but what many programmers don’t know about how to write shell scripts to make most of it. Some of them even not familiar with various Linux shells like bash, csh, or ksh, which further limits their ability.

If you don’t know, bash is a UNIX shell and command language, which is also a default login shell for many Linux systems and Mac OS.

It provides the ability to write scripts to do things programmatically and automate repeated and boring tasks like copying files between server, checking a particular file in all servers, etc.

Shell scripting is an important skill to become a better developer or programmer. It allows you to automate trivial tasks that otherwise take away your valuable time. It also allows you to do things quickly.

For example, if you have to copy a file into 10 Linux hosts and if you do it manually using ssh or SCP it might take 10 minutes. Still, if you know shell scripting, then you can quickly create a script in 5 minutes and copy the files in another 1 minutes, you not just save 4 minutes right there but for all future work, you have a script that can do this job in only one minute.

Just knowing some simple control and loop constructs along with bash variables makes a lot of difference. That’s the reason I suggest every programmer learn shell scripting with Linux. This is also one of the skills which separate great developers from mediocre ones.

Some of the programmers I have met argued that it’s better to learn Python rather than shell scripting because they have more power, and you can do a lot more stuff with them. Well, that’s true, Python has a module for almost every possible, thing and if you know Python and you can get Python in the host you are working, then stick with that, but most of the time it’s not guaranteed.

Sometime, you won’t find Python or Perl in the server, or you just don’t have access to them. In that case, simple shell commands and scripting skill helps a lot. And, it won’t take long to learn Shell scripting as there is very little to learn. So, you can quickly become productive.

A couple of months ago, I shared some of the best courses to learn Shell Scripting, but then my readers were asking about some free classes, and this article is born. But, if you don’t mind investing some money on your learning, then you can also check out that list.

As I have said before, I’ve used shell scripts to save myself many hours of tedious and boring work. More importantly, having the ability to write shell scripts have helped me enormously in my career, especially during release, support, and troubleshooting production issues.

Btw, If you just need a comprehensive course to learn bash shell scripting then I also suggest you to check out the Bash Scripting and Shell Programming (Linux Command Line) on Udemy. It is one of the best ones to start with, particularly if you follow hands-on and learn by doing approach.

Bash Scripting and Shell Programming Course Linux Command Line

6 Best FREE Courses to Learn Shell Scripting in Linux

Anyway, here is my list of some of the free courses to learn Shell scripting in Linux. Some people think that free resources are not worthy of their time as they are often inferior and doesn’t cover all the topics.

While I agree that free courses are often not as comprehensive as their paid one, which is noticeable but most free courses on Udemy are excellent quality, especially those which are recently launched and just made free by their instructor for a promotional and educational reason.

If you have decided to learn Shell Scripting this year, these courses are an excellent way to kick-start your journey.

1. Intro to Linux Shell Scripting (Free course)

This is a mini-course to get up to speed with Linux shell scripting quickly in just about 1 hour and perfect for beginners who are just starting with bash shell itself.

This online shell scripting course will teach you the essentials of writing your own Linux shell scripts and also help you to avoid the most common mistakes made by inexperienced Linux users, writing shell scripts for the first time.

You will also learn about best practices and standard conventions, like a simple technique that can make amazingly complex scripts easy to write, read, and maintain in the future.

Since there is no IDE in Linux and you have to rely on VIM, it makes sense to create simple scripts that are both easier to read and maintain. This is the most critical thing I can suggest to you based upon my years of experience in writing shell scripts. Overall, an excellent little free course to learn Linux shell scripting in 1 hour.

Here is the link to join this course for FREE — Intro to Linux Shell Scripting (Free course)

2. Bash Shell scripting (10 -hours of free content)

As I have told you, Bash shell scripts allow you to automate just about any task on a UNIX system, and this course will teach you how to achieve that in a concise time.

In this course, you will learn how to write shell scripts for automating tasks on UNIX systems, learn how to perform basic networking tasks on the command line — file transfer using cURL, and wget and check connectivity using ping and telnet command.

It’s a comprehensive free course with over 9.5 hours of content to learn shell scripting and automation. You will start shell scripting with a bash from scratch. The course begins with what is a Shell script and why you should learn, and then it goes on how to create a script and execute it in Linux.

Here is the link to join this course for FREE —Bash Shell scripting (10 -hours of free content)

It then goes on to explain other parts like variables, control structure, bash special characters, functions, and some fun with String. Talking about social proof, the course has, on average, 4.2 ratings from close to 47,859 students which are excellent.

3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Shell Scripting Fundamentals

This is another impressive course to learn the fundamentals of shell scripting but from Pluralsight.

Created by Nigel Poulton, author of the famous Docker Deep Dive course on Pluralsight, this course is very well thought and well organized, and the pace of the course is also suitable for beginners.

It starts with very basics concepts like what a script is and how to create a simple bash script. Then it gradually increases the complexity of the script by introducing you with essential concepts like variables, bash parameters, positional parameters, conditionals, loops, and functions.

This means after completing this course, you will be able to not only read existing shell script and modify them but also to create your own bash scripts from scratch.

Here is the link to join this course — Red Hat Enterprise Linux Shell Scripting Fundamentals

The only gotcha is this course is not exactly free as you need Pluralsight membership to access this course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 per year. Though, I got the full membership last year on just $199 on one of their sales.

Anyway, even if you don’t have Pluralsight membership, you can still access this course for free by taking advantage of their 10-day free Pass, which provides 200 minutes access to all of their courses. This course is 2.5 hours long, which means you can easily watch the full course for free.

For Individuals

4. Linux shell & scripting tutorial

This is another fantastic course to learn about essential Bash commands and basic scripting skills.

If you have been worked in the Cloud like Amazon Web Services or AWS, Microsoft Azure, or even Google Cloud, then you know that bash commands and scripts are a very important part of working efficiently in the Cloud.

And, in this course, you will not only learn about common bash concepts like how to write shell scripts but also about different bash variables, etc which are necessary to write complex bash scripts.

Here is the link to join this course for FREE — Linux shell & scripting tutorial

Talking about the social proof, the course has got on average a 3.5 rating from more than 10.000 learners which is not bad for a free course.

5. Linux Command Line Made Easy

This is another free course to learn the Linux command line from Udemy which you can use to write bash shell scripts. This course will not teach you how to write bash scripts but it will introduce you with some common Linux commands which are essential for any Linux user, Developers, or System admins.

You will learn the following commands in this course:

1. Intro terminal commands: date, cal, man, history, clear
2. Navigation and exploration system commands: pwd, cd, ls
3. File administration commands: mkdir, cp, mv, rm, find, locate, wildcards
4. File content commands: cat, head, tail, less, touch, nano, grep
5. Process commands: top, ps, kill
6. Network commands: ifconfig, ping, wget

Here is the link to join this course for FREE —Linux Command Line Made Easy

6. Practical Bash Scripting On Linux and Mac OSX

This is one more awesome free course to learn Bash shell and automation in Linux. In this course, you will first learn the basic concepts and commands you need to start using Bash on Linux and Mac OS X.

After that, it moves on to shell scripting using bash with variables, functions, and other techniques to write proper bash scripts. In short, a nice course to learn bash shell on Linux or Mac OS.

Here is the link to join this course for FREE — Practical Bash Scripting On Linux and Mac OSX

That’s all about some of the free courses to learn shell scripting in Linux with bash, csh, ksh, or other shell programs. You don’t need to learn every single shell out there, I suggest just stick with the bash, as its not only the most popular Linux shell but also default login shell for Mac OS.

I have worked in so many different organizations, and I have found a bash shell available to me most of the time. Last but not least, it also powerful and easy to work as compared to other shells.


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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best free courses to learn Shell Scripting with a bash in Linux, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

P. S. — If you don’t mind spending few bucks for something worth learning and looking for the best course, then Linux Shell Scripting: A Project-Based Approach to Learning is one of the best ones to start with, particularly if you follow learn by doing approach.

Linux Shell Scripting: Learning Projects for Beginners