Malta Linux User Group

This tutorial presents the Linux terminal and the "bash" shell to people who have never used a command line to give commands to an operating system before, or who have never done so in Linux/Unix. People who have already used a Unix shell before might find it a bit simple.

Due to the popularity of the Microsoft Windows operating system, and the large number of ex-Windows-users who have discovered Linux, I have provided comparisons to equivalent or similar features and terminology in Windows’ MS-DOS prompt or Command prompt. These are provided as an additional help for Windows users, and are not necessary to follow this document.

Since this tutorial is intended as an introduction, it is purposely not comprehensive. Several commands, for example, are only explained in the depth necessary to gain an understanding of what they do and how to use them, not necessarily to use them to their full potential.

In the article I assume that the user is already familiar with concepts such as files and directories (folders), as well as filenames, etc.