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Welcome to Learn Linux

Welcome to "Learn Linux"! Admittedly, the course name is a bit of a misnomer. It's called "Learn Linux" because "Linux" is what most students think of regarding the concepts in this course. A more accurate title might be "Learn to use shells and terminals in a Unix-like environment," but that's a mouthful.

Learning Goals
  • Understand the difference between a shell and a terminal
  • Learn how to navigate and use the file system using the command line
  • Learn how to install software using the command line
  • Understand how to manage your PATH and environment variables
  • Learn how to manage permissions and execute programs

This course will get you comfortable working on a command line, which is a skill that's going to be critical for the rest of your career as a programmer. So, instead of writing code in the browser, in this course you'll interact with a command line interface (CLI) directly on your machine.

Assignment

  1. Find and open a terminal on your computer.

    macOS

    Open the "Terminal" application. You can find it by searching for "Terminal" in Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the top-right corner of your screen).

    Windows

    Open the "Command Prompt" application. You can find it by searching for "Command Prompt" in the Start Menu.

    Linux

    If you're on Linux, I refuse to believe that you don't already know how.

    Look for a system menu button on your screen, probably at the top left or bottom left corner. Click it, then find "Terminal."

    If you're using a Chromebook (ChromeOS), enable the Linux development environment by going to Settings -> Advanced -> Developers -> Linux development environment. Once installed, open the "Terminal" application from your app launcher.

  2. Type the following command and press Enter:

    echo "Hello world"

  3. When you're done, answer the question.