Introduction to Linux

Course Objectives

This skills-focused course is about 50% lab to lecture ratio, combining expert instructor-led discussions with practical hands-on labs that emphasize current techniques, best practices and standards.

• The Design of Linux
• Basic Operations
• File System Basics
• Wildcards
• File and Directory Permissions
• Working with files
• Executing Programs
• Using find
• Filters and other useful commands
• The vi editor
• Customizing the user environment
• Networking/Communications
• Backups and archiving

Course Prerequisites

This is an introductory-level course, designed for anyone wanting to learn Linux. Attendees should be comfortable working with computers and the command line, but no other specific skills are required to attend.

Please see the Related Courses tab for specific Pre-Requisite courses, Related Courses that offer similar skills or topics, and next-step Learning Path recommendations.

Related Courses | UNIX/Linux Essentials Training Suite

• TTLX2103: Introduction to Linux Basics | Linux Essentials JumpStart – 3 days
• TTLX2105: Introduction to UNIX/Linux Fundamentals with Shell Scripting – 5 days
• TTLXSYSADM5: Linux System Administration – 5 days

Course Agenda

Please note that this list of topics is based on our standard course offering, evolved from typical industry uses and trends. We’ll work with you to tune this course and level of coverage to target the skills you need most.

1. The Design of Linux

• A brief history of Linux
• The Linux design philosophy
• Linux architecture

2. Basic Operations

• Logging in and out
• The general form of a Linux command
• Common commands
• Using man pages
• Essential commands

3. File System Basics

• The Linux directory structure
• Standard directories
• Relative and absolute pathnames
• Legal file names
• Navigating the filesystem

4. Wildcards

• Matching one character
• Matching many characters
• Shortcuts
• Wildcard gotchas
• Wildcards and ls

5. File and Directory Permissions

• Viewing permissions
• File permissions
• Directory permissions
• Setting defaults
• Changing permissions
• Keeping data secure

6. Working with files

• Viewing contents
• Identifying file contents
• Copying and moving
• Deleting
• Using symbolic links

7. Executing Programs

• Redirecting STDOUT
• Redirecting STDERR
• Redirecting STDIN
• Creating pipelines
• Processes attributes
• Listing processes
• Killing processes
• Foreground & background processes

8. Using find

• Syntax
• Finding by name, type, or size
• Combining tests
• Finding by size, owner, or timestamps
• Using xargs with find
• Other find options

9. Filters and other useful commands

• What is a filter?
• cat: a generic filter
• head and tail
• grep
• sort
• wc
• other interesting filters

10. The vi editor

• Why vi?
• Basic vi operations: navigating, adding, deleting
• Advanced operations: buffer management, search and replace, configuration options

11. Customizing the user environment

• About shells
• Shell startup files
• Shell variables
• Search path
• Aliases
• Simple shell scripts

12. Networking/Communications

• Reading and sending mail
• Remote login
• Remote file transfer
• Other network utilities (ping, finger, etc)

13. Backups and archiving

• Checking space used or available
• Creating tar archives
• Viewing and extracting files from archives
• Compression utilities
• Working with windows