Using Puppy to Learn CMD Line (Noob Here... lol)

[shdwjackal]

Hi everyone. Been lurking on these boards for a minute and thought I might as well finally join. lol Long story short, I had always been interested in Linux, and the concept of it, but never wanted to take a chance on installing it onto a PC of mine mainly because of my families familiarity with Windows. Had a desktop die on me in the house and figured no better time than the present. So I ordered a Puppy Linux disk and played with that for a while and loved it. The simplicity and speed of it was amazing. I decided to get an Ubuntu Live CD and did a full install and am enjoying that even more. It "just works." lol My question is this.

What attracted me to Linux was the ability to use the command line prompt and to run a Live CD (puppy Linux in this case) on a malfunctioning Windows system and perform steps to possibly repair it. As I mentioned earlier, Ubuntu just works. As a result, I feel as if I have not had the need to mess with the command line, mostly out of fear of messing up what has up until now worked so well. What I was wondering is if I would be able to keep Ubuntu on my PC, and run Puppy from a Live CD that way if I play around in the command line (or terminal) and mess something up, I can always just reboot the system after removing the Live CD and everything will be back to normal.

Am I wrong in thinking this, or will a configuration error on my part performed in Puppy carry over to Ubuntu and mess it up? I understand that if I move around files on the hard disk that those changes will most definitely carry over, but I guess I am just unsure about everything else. I love the fact that Ubuntu works; but I also want to learn to REALLY use Linux. Thanks everyone in advance for any help you can provide. Also, any tips or guidance on learning to use the terminal would be greatly appreciated.

VR
O.

[egan]

You really cannot mess up too much in the command line unless you run as root. Even then common sense will keep you from doing some of the more devastating things. Though I think "learning to REALLY use Linux" is different from learning the command line, as the second has more to do with programming and configuration. My recommendation is to learn how to use a shell and the common UNIX utilities first, until it is pretty much second nature (you can do this in Ubuntu). Learn how to avoid the file browser, learn how to use text processing commands and editors to simplify your work. After you are comfortable with these aspects of Linux, you can go into the configuration side; at this point you may want to dump Ubuntu and go for a more configurable like Gentoo or in the best case Arch Linux.

To get started learning the shell and basic UNIX utilities, this is an awesome tutorial: LinuxCommand.org: Learn the Linux command line. Write shell scripts.

[shdwjackal]

I really appreciate the input. I will check out the link you gave me as soon as I get home. I see what you are saying though. I guess when I was looking into Linux, on a few boring days in Iraq, I was looking at how you could do things much simpler through the command line as opposed to clicking the file browser and stuff. That being said, is there a Linux Distro that is more suited to going in and diagnosing an issue with a jacked up PC? Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction egan.

[reed9]

You can run Puppy or any other distro in a live environment with Ubuntu installed on the hard drive, yes. As you guessed, unless you are messing around with the Ubuntu system files on the hard drive, nothing you do in the live environment is going to mess with your install.

There are a number of distros specifically oriented towards system rescue. My two favorites are SystemRescueCd and grml.

For many things, the command line is a quicker, more powerful tool than a GUI. But obviously the learning curve is higher. As said, I would focus first on learning basic file management and package management from the command line. (Once I got comfortable with cli package management, I gave up using a GUI at all for it.) I also do almost all text editing from a command line editor, nano or vim.

Surprisingly, you can do almost anything you can do with a GUI, using just a console, including graphical web browsing, watching movies, and viewing pictures.

An interesting project showing just how capable a console only experience can be is INX.

A great blog for some command line tips and tricks is here.

[rokytnji]

Also as being a Linux user that dual boots AntiX and Puppy side by side. Just don't ever mount the Ubuntu Partition with Pmount as you are playing in Puppies Terminal. Puppy assumes you know what you are doing and runs as a root user. No sudo by default, though it can be set up. So be a little careful.

[shdwjackal]

Thank you so much everyone. I am a big believer in forums, and this has go to be one of the best I have used so far. I think I will play around with the CLI in Ubuntu and get familiar with it. Some great reading passed on by you guys. Don't think Ill end up getting any work at all done today... LMAO be cool.

VR
O.