this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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So, I installed Linux Mint not too long ago, and while I've been able to do what I want to do without touching the Terminal, I am a bit curious how it works, and whether it could help me.

In particular, I am slowly getting into programming, and I've heard some people talk about strange, otherworldly things, like Vim, and Shell Scripts.

There was this PDF I downloaded called "The Linux Command Line" by William Shotts, but it is 570 pages long, and glancing through it, it seems to go into many different things, and I am afraid I'll end up learning a hundred things while only ever using ten of them, if you get my meaning.

So yeah, anyone who has some tips, or resources for a Linux newbie, please let me know.

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[–] communism@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

I would not say that reading a book is the way to go about it. At least the way I learned was just through using my computer like normal, and naturally I ended up using the terminal for some things e.g. updating packages, doing simple operations like moving files around, etc. I don't think it's a good idea to specifically try to "learn the command line" as a directed/targeted goal, because like you said you could end up learning a bunch of stuff you never use.