Basic Linux Usage
Introduction
As some of you have seen, or will see, I mostly use Linux distributions to do my work and hop in to Windows to play games or watch movies, vice versa. I also tag myself as a noob of Linux, so, I thought, what would be better than me, a noob, explaining basics?
What is Linux?
From Digital Ocean:
Linux is a family of free and open-source operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Operating systems based on Linux are known as Linux distributions or distros, for short. Examples include Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo, Arch Linux, and many others.
It is mostly used in server-side setups; however, most people also use that for couple of reasons like:
- being free
- being open-source
- being customizable
- to be accustomed to a Unix-like environment
It may be hard to understand why someone would even create a thing like Linux at the first place, but it is its history, and we won’t be bothering ourselves with these problems. We will mostly focus on usage case, which will be beneficial for us even on Windows and MacOS environments.
Most Generic Installation and Usage
The most generic installation is like a Windows installation, if you are using some sort of simplified/specialized desktop Linux distro, it is mostly like next, next, choose, next, finish style. However, if you start with a server-side based distro or Arch, Gentoo-like distro, you will most probably struggle at the very beginning. But, no worries, there are great documentation and if you can get higher on learning curve, you will feel much better.
In the usage part, even if you do not use terminal that much, you will still need it in almost all situations. GUI interface may differ from distro to distro or setup to setup; however, terminal usage is almost identical. You can use terminal for almost anything, like:
- installing and upgrading software
- updating system
- managing files
- managing users and services
- etc.