Learning Linux Lesson #2: RUN! Run it from CLI!

by Mike Levin

Two legs good. Four legs baaad. The second lesson in learning Linux is to not have panic attacks when you open those little black type-in boxes. And believe me, no one will tell you this or teach you how to get over it but me. Suppress the frustration. It’s not nearly as bad a place as you think. It is a good place. It is a love-worthy place. It is your (and everyone else’s of substance) future. Microsoft knows it. Apple knew it. And you should know it now too.

Nuke the place for morbid… uh, I mean from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. Windows is was born bad… bad to the BIOS, but we’re stuck with it, at least for awhile. So in the meanwhile, RUN! I mean run commands from the command-line interface, also colloquially known as the CLI, Terminal or Shell. Any will do and all are equally confusing. Don’t be confused. It’s just the same as Dorothy landing in Oz. Instead of B&W going color, color goes black… but oh what a beautiful black with highlights in emerald green and turquoise blue. Give it a try. Trust men, you’ll love it. And you’ll never go obsolete again.

Linux is lots of little commands. Get started with ls, cd, and pwd (for “print working directory”) to move around directories. Most people are on Windows and Windows 11 makes installing Linux historically easy. And so my message starts at Windows 11. And you’re already on a graphical desktop (Windows 11) so it’s a perfect time to understand they’re all the same and you don’t need yet another. It’s the black command-line window that’s important. You have to RUN. So take my advice and RUN. Make sure you’re running with copies of things and that no single instance is all that important.