A quick primer to use Linux

In the early days of my career, I knew I was very good with computers. They held no surprises for me. I knew how to control them; I was the master of the machine. That lasted until I sat behind my first Linux machine. That was when I realized I only knew a lot about Windows and how to use that platform. I was at a loss. I could not even get the contents of a directory on the screen.

To my defense, this was in the early 1990s. Linux was just released, and we did not have the wealth of information online that we have today. The World Wide Web had just been invented, search engines did not exist, and information was hard to find. Today, things are more straightforward – there are tons of sources out there that can help you get up to speed with something new.

I’m going to help you learn some of the basics so that you can play around with Linux without pulling your hair out. I am not going to discuss any of the available GUI systems. There...