<html><head><style type="text/css"></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div><br></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Nathaniel <nathaniel73@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Ubuntu AU List <ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sun, 10 April, 2011 6:40:56 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Simplifying getting started with the Command Line<br></font><br><div>What I propose is a simple "First time here? try man -k <keyword> to get you started"</div>_____________________________________________<br><br>That would get old very quickly, but I do sympathise. Back in the bad ol' days before open source, and almost back before the internet (certainly before it was called "The Web") operating systems like SCO Unix came with a thick manual. This had most of what you needed to get started, but it wasn't a comprehensive guide by any means. One of the things it did show was "man -k", and from there you were mostly expected to find your own way.<br><br>Things are very much easier now, and next to "man -k" Google is probably your best friend. It helps to know what you're looking for though, and in this case it's a primer on the terminal shell, which is called "bash". Most primers will probably start with an explanation of just why it's called that. A quick search found the following primer:<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.faqs.org/docs/bashman/bashref_toc.html">http://www.faqs.org/docs/bashman/bashref_toc.html</a></span><br><div><br>which looks better than some, but not as good it might be. Some searching will find others that you might find more (or less) useful. A good primer might take you from the very basics (what is bash) right through to basic bash scripting after which you might be ready for some of the more advanced scripting tutorials. I'm about halfway somewhere myself, being rather keen but lacking any real time to spend on it.<br><br>Chris<br> </div> <meta http-equiv="x-dns-prefetch-control" content="on"></div></div> </div></body></html>