So after reading a number of posts and comments on here about Linux, I’ve decided to give 'er a go. I have access to an Azure VM, but I have never done anything involving Unix before and have only a basic understanding of coding in general.
Where do I even start? The most daunting thing for me is command line script, as it seems I have to memorize close to 150 common commands and their functions. Is there a set of tools or free classes that would make it easier for me to understand, or should I just get stuck in there? I was planning on using Pop!_OS since I do a lot of gaming and it seems like the closest thing Ubuntu has for that purpose.
I wouldn’t say you need to learn “150 commands” to use Linux. Here are the basics that will get you quite a long way:
Whichever commands are used to install, update and remove packages. On Debian and Ubuntu (and any other distro based on them), that’s “apt install (name)”, “apt upgrade” and “apt remove (name)”. On Arch, it’s “pacman -S (name)”, “pacman -Syu” and “pacman -R (name)”, etc.
sudo or doas. Lets you execute commands as root without having to log in as root (which can be dangerous if you’re not careful). Look up your distro’s wiki to see which you have and how it’s set up.
I’d say that during general work, when there’s no troubleshooting or customizing happening, these are the only commands you have to know. The rest are useful to know, but usually you can use graphical tools to do the same job.
ls, cd, nano so you can get around the file system and edit files.
tar for extracting archives. Used to be more complicated, but these days “tar xf (archive file)” detects the type automatically.
mc. It’s a two-panel file manager that makes navigating the console and doing many common tasks a lot easier. It’s inspired by Norton Commander, which used to do a similar job for DOS users.
Usually when your distro’s wiki or some other website tells you to execute some specific command, they’ll list it so all you need is to copy and paste it into your terminal.