I highly recommend LinuxCommand.org’s “Learning the Shell” and “Writing Shell Scripts”. It will show you the fundamentals and provide you a strong foundation to build on. It is clearly written and not too long.
Also, The Linux Foundation offers a free course, Introduction to Linux, through edx.org.
What you’ll learn:
- A good working knowledge of Linux
- How to navigate through major Linux distributions
- System configurations and graphical interface of Linux
- Basic command line operations
- Common applications of Linux
As a standard, all commands have help in some form. You can view the help with the -h or --help option (cmd -h) or access the manual page with the man command. man page’s have their own format. The output is displayed in a pager, usually less. The man pages can also be viewed online, in html format, at many locations, for example Linux man pages online. Normally at a terminal you would type man bash (replace bash with any command) but you can also format the output to meet your needs.
- Create PDF doc from man:
man -t bash | ps2pdf - bash.pdf - Create HTML doc from man:
man --html=firefox bash
NOTE: replace firefox with favorite browser - Create TEXT doc from man:
man bash | col -b | kate -i
NOTE: replace kate w/favorite editor.
The Core Utilities come from the GNU organization and they have documentation also online. You may also hear about info, another documentation system.
These days, because of systemd and desktop standards, you will hear a lot about freedesktop.org. There is a lot of doc to read there, but much of it is available via a man pages.
Tips on using less:
q - exit
/str - search for str forward
?str - search for str backward
n - next
g - top
G - bottom
h - help
arrow keys work
ctrl-c - escape