Book Image

Learn Linux Quickly

By : Ahmed AlKabary
Book Image

Learn Linux Quickly

By: Ahmed AlKabary

Overview of this book

Linux is one of the most sought-after skills in the IT industry, with jobs involving Linux being increasingly in demand. Linux is by far the most popular operating system deployed in both public and private clouds; it is the processing power behind the majority of IoT and embedded devices. Do you use a mobile device that runs on Android? Even Android is a Linux distribution. This Linux book is a practical guide that lets you explore the power of the Linux command-line interface. Starting with the history of Linux, you'll quickly progress to the Linux filesystem hierarchy and learn a variety of basic Linux commands. You'll then understand how to make use of the extensive Linux documentation and help tools. The book shows you how to manage users and groups and takes you through the process of installing and managing software on Linux systems. As you advance, you'll discover how you can interact with Linux processes and troubleshoot network problems before learning the art of writing bash scripts and automating administrative tasks with Cron jobs. In addition to this, you'll get to create your own Linux commands and analyze various disk management techniques. By the end of this book, you'll have gained the Linux skills required to become an efficient Linux system administrator and be able to manage and work productively on Linux systems.

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Table of Contents (24 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
1
Your First Keystrokes
Your First Keystrokes
A little bit of history
Linux today and the future
Installing a Linux virtual machine
Terminal versus Shell
A few simple commands
Knowledge check
Free Chapter
2
Climbing the Tree
Climbing the Tree
The Linux filesystem
Navigating through the directory tree
Parent and current directories
Moving around quickly
Hidden Files
Passing command arguments
The touch command
Making directories
Combining command options
Knowledge check
3
Meet the Editors
Meet the Editors
Graphical editors – gedit and kate
The nano editor
The vi editor
File viewing commands
Knowledge check
4
Copying, Moving, and Deleting Files
Copying, Moving, and Deleting Files
Copying one file
Copying multiple files
Copying one directory
Copying multiple directories
Moving one file
Moving multiple files
Moving one directory
Moving multiple directories
Renaming files
Hiding files
Removing files
Removing directories
Knowledge check
5
Read Your Manuals!
Read Your Manuals!
The four categories of linux commands
Determining a command's type
Finding a command's location
What does the command do?
The man page
Help for shell builtins
The info page
The very helpful apropos command
The /usr/share/doc directory
Knowledge check
6
Hard versus Soft Links
Hard versus Soft Links
File inodes
Displaying file inode number
Creating soft links
Creating hard links
Knowledge check
7
Who Is Root?
Who Is Root?
Accessing the root user
Setting the root password
The dash difference
Knowledge check
8
Controlling the Population
Controlling the Population
The /etc/passwd file
Adding users
Modifying user attributes
Defining the skeleton
Changing the defaults
Removing users
The /etc/group file
Adding groups
Adding group members
Primary versus secondary groups
Removing groups
File ownership and permissions
Changing file ownership
Understanding file permissions
Changing file permissions
Directory permissions
Using octal notation
Knowledge check
9
Piping and I/O Redirection
Piping and I/O Redirection
Linux pipes
Input and output redirection
Redirecting standard output
Redirecting standard error
Redirecting all output to the same file
Discarding output
Redirecting standard input
Knowledge check
10
Analyzing and Manipulating Files
Analyzing and Manipulating Files
Spot the difference
Viewing file size
Counting characters, words, and lines
Viewing the file type
Sorting files
Showing unique lines
Searching for patterns
The stream editor
Translating characters
Cutting text
Text processing with awk
Wildcard characters
Regular expressions
Knowledge check
11
Let's Play Find and Seek
Let's Play Find and Seek
The locate command
Updating the file database
The find command
Knowledge check
12
You Got a Package
You Got a Package
What is a package?
The role of a package manager
Where do packages come from?
How to download packages
How to install packages
How to remove packages
How to search for packages
How to show package information
Listing all packages
Patching your system
Knowledge check
13
Kill the Process
Kill the Process
What is a process?
Parent process versus child process
Foreground versus background processes
Sending signals to processes
Working with process priority
The /proc directory
Knowledge check
14
The Power of Sudo
The Power of Sudo
Examples of privileged commands
Granting access with sudo
User and command aliases
Group privileges
Listing user privileges
visudo versus /etc/sudoers
Knowledge check
15
What's Wrong with the Network?
What's Wrong with the Network?
Testing network connectivity
Listing your network interfaces
Checking your IP address
Checking your gateway address
Flying with traceroute
Breaking your DNS
Changing your hostname
Restarting your network interface
Knowledge check
16
Bash Scripting Is Fun
Bash Scripting Is Fun
Creating simple scripts
The PATH variable
Reading user input
Passing arguments to scripts
Using the if condition
Looping in bash scripts
Bash script functions
No browsing for you
Knowledge check
17
You Need a Cron Job
You Need a Cron Job
Our first cron job
Run every five minutes
More cron examples
Automating system patching
Running a job once
Knowledge check
18
Archiving and Compressing Files
Archiving and Compressing Files
Creating an archive
Viewing archive contents
Extracting archive files
Compressing with gzip
Compressing with bzip2
Compressing with xz
Measuring performance
Knowledge check
19
Create Your Own Commands
Create Your Own Commands
Your first alias
One alias for multiple commands
Listing all aliases
Creating a permanent alias
Removing an alias
Some useful aliases
Adding safety nets
Go crazy with aliases
Knowledge check
20
Everyone Needs Disk Space
Everyone Needs Disk Space
Where are your devices?
Where is your hard disk?
Adding disks to your virtual machine
Creating new disk partitions
Creating new filesystems
Mounting filesystems
Unmounting filesystems
Permanently mounting filesystems
Running out of space
Corrupting and fixing filesystems
LVM to the rescue
Knowledge check
21
echo "Goodbye My Friend"
echo "Goodbye My Friend"
Where to go next?
Keep in touch
22
Assessments
Knowledge check 1
Knowledge check 2
Knowledge check 3
Knowledge check 4
Knowledge check 5
Knowledge check 6
Knowledge check 7
Knowledge check 8
Knowledge check 9
Knowledge check 10
Knowledge check 11
Knowledge check 12
Knowledge check 13
Knowledge check 14
Knowledge check 15
Knowledge check 16
Knowledge check 17
Knowledge check 18
Knowledge check 19
Knowledge check 20
23
Other Books You May Enjoy
Other Books You May Enjoy
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The /usr/share/doc directory

The /usr/share/doc directory is another excellent place to look for help in Linux. This directory has very intensive documentation; it doesn't just show you how to use a command; sometimes, it will even show the name and contact information of the authors who developed the command. Moreover, it may also include a TODO file that contains a list of unfinished tasks/features; contributors usually check the TODO files to help fix bugs and develop new features.

To demonstrate, let's go to the nano documentation directory:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cd /usr/share/doc/nano 
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/usr/share/doc/nano$ pwd
/usr/share/doc/nano

Now list the contents of the directory to see what's inside:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:/usr/share/doc/nano$ ls
AUTHORS               copyright faq.html        nano.html   README    TODO 
changelog.Debian.gz   examples  IMPROVEMENTS.gz NEWS.gz     THANKS.gz

Cool! You can view the AUTHORS file to see the team of developers who contributed...

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