Learning command line basics and Virtual box

Hello people!

So I was looking up for a course that would teach me the basics of linux command line and I got across this one. Though I already know the basics of command line but just in case I was missing something, I thought to go through it once.

Linux Command Line Basics | Udacity

This course is for a beginner. It’s not preferred to go through it, if you already know about the commands. But I have mentioned the brief summary of it and key points which I didn’t know.

In the start of the course, I found something really fascinating, how to set up a virtual machine on my own computer. It made me feel really good that I can set up a new computer on my own system. Sounds interesting, right? Why Virtual Machine? This link will tell you the reasons why people prefer to use the virtual machine for their work.

7 Practical Reasons to Start Using a Virtual Machine

So in this blog, I will mention all those things which I learnt something new today.

1. To set up the virtual machine, follow the above link. In the first few slides, you will be carried through the instructions how to set the virtual environment up. I wont mention that here.
2. cat <file_name> will display the content of the file on the terminal itself.
3. man <command_name> for eg: man apt will give you the manual pages (detailed help) of the command apt. you can look through it in case of a doubt. Note: Many commands also have a -h flag which shows help. man shows a “detailed version” of the help.
4. Line based commands: There some commands which when typed doesn’t return back the cursor, eg: bc (used to access the calculator). You got to type quit or Ctrl+D for exiting from that interface.
5. There is a command less <file_name> which is used to access a text file page wise rather than using cat <file_name> which displays the whole text. This is especially useful when dealing with long texts.

Relative Path v/s Absolute Path

6. cd without arguments is a shortcut to take you to your home directory.

7. mkdir is used to make a directory (You all must be knowing that). But rmdiris used to remove an empty directory (Note empty). If you wish to remove a directory with files in it, you will have to do that recursively using rm -r <directory name>.

8. ls is used to list all the files in the current directory. ls -a will list all the hidden and non-hidden files in the directory and ls -al will give all the details of the files. Here -a and -al are called the flags.

9. touch will create an empty file in the current directory.

10. cp copies the file in the required directory. Syntax is like cp test.txt Downloads . Here the second word is the destination folder. cp -r docs more_docs copies the content of of docs to more_docs. Note the -r flag standing for recursive.

11. date gives the current date.

So to wrap up, using the virtual machine really amazed me. Using it, I can store files hidden, in case needed. I even learnt about some new commands of the command line.

Keep learning! Cheers!