mindlord
Notices Two Things
Friends, Romans, Linux Noobs! I see the topic of "terminal fear" popping up about every two weeks. Usually embedded in other topics. Rest assured, if and when an end user is put into the "unholy" position of opening a Linux terminal to do something. You're not going to be out there all alone with no guidance. Odds are if you're popping open a terminal for the first time on the Pandora it's because you're doing some "magic-hackery" or accessing a feature that's not quite ready yet. The most you'll every have to do is open the terminal, type a command exactly as is says on the wiki or what the friendly guru told you here in the forums or on IRC, and press enter. In general you won't be using the terminal to move or copy files, modify text configurations, or anything like that. There are GUI file managers and powerful text editors for those tasks. You CAN do those things in a terminal, but you don't have to.
For some it might help to think of the Terminal like a command console in a game like Quake, TES4:Oblivion, Fallout 3, or whatever. With a little knowledge and guidance you can enter cheat codes (commands) that affect how your Pandora behaves. It really is that simple most of the time.
If you feel inclined to learn what that cryptic command does specifically, that's up to you. As long as you trust the information, and you're ok taking another guys word that the solution to your problem is to type a command like this:
You've got nothing to worry about. This type of solution appears in the Ubuntu forums all the time, and Ubuntu is more or less considered the most noob friendly Linux out there. Hell, even in windows stuff like this happens! I work as a phone support tech for an ISP. I can't tell you how many times I've had to get a person running Vista to open up a terminal in Administrator mode to enter the command:
How is that any less unholy and archaic than what I exampled for Linux?
The Linux terminal is not some Pandora's Box (See what I did there?
) that once opened can't be closed. Linux takes great care to ensure that you don't damage sensitive parts of the operating system when you're running as your normal user account. You can only affect files in your home directory, and you can't accidentally overwrite or delete critical operating system files without consciously giving yourself permission to do so. There is no magic button combination that you can accidentally press that will destroy your Pandora once and for all. That's not to say that once can't give themselves root/superuser/administrator powers and wreak havoc, but as long as you're careful nothing bad is going to happen.
In general, if you're following instructions and a command starts with "sudo" (Super User DO) take a deep breath, type very carefully, and double check your spelling and punctuation. While not every command that needs Super User power is particularly dangerous. Some can be. You should also trust your source, but that goes without saying. Truthfully, this is even less dangerous than the Windows Command Prompt which does nothing to stop a non-administrator user from deleting huge swaths of the file-system if they feel so inclined.
Learning to use the Terminal in Linux is a great benefit to any end user. It grants them to power to fix problems that otherwise couldn't be fixed with strapped in a GUI. A fine example. The GUI is completely locked up. You can move the mouse, but nothing responds. In Windows, what can you do? Reboot? That's about it. In Linux, you can hit Alt-Ctrl-F1 and drop to a terminal at any time. Log in, and issue the command:
Hokus-Cadabra! In 5 seconds you've got X running again. Note: this command is for the Pandora, other versions of Linux will use gdm, kdm, xdm or something else entirely instead of slim-init. This is just one simple scenario where shedding the "Terminal Fear" can save you a whole bunch of time.
There are literally thousands of "cheat codes" to try in Linux. Once you get the hang of "cheat codes" you can easily pick up more advanced commands, and even writing scripts. Before you know it you'll be fearlessly issuing terminal commands in Linux and wondering how you ever got along without them before.
Thanks for listening.
Edit: Spelling and to thank dflemstr for pointing out my gdm restart error.
Edit: Replaced the gdm specific command for restarting X with EvilDragon's information.
For some it might help to think of the Terminal like a command console in a game like Quake, TES4:Oblivion, Fallout 3, or whatever. With a little knowledge and guidance you can enter cheat codes (commands) that affect how your Pandora behaves. It really is that simple most of the time.
If you feel inclined to learn what that cryptic command does specifically, that's up to you. As long as you trust the information, and you're ok taking another guys word that the solution to your problem is to type a command like this:
Code:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/openGLes.so.4 /usr/lib/openGLes.so.3
Code:
netsh int ip reset reset.logThe Linux terminal is not some Pandora's Box (See what I did there?
) that once opened can't be closed. Linux takes great care to ensure that you don't damage sensitive parts of the operating system when you're running as your normal user account. You can only affect files in your home directory, and you can't accidentally overwrite or delete critical operating system files without consciously giving yourself permission to do so. There is no magic button combination that you can accidentally press that will destroy your Pandora once and for all. That's not to say that once can't give themselves root/superuser/administrator powers and wreak havoc, but as long as you're careful nothing bad is going to happen.In general, if you're following instructions and a command starts with "sudo" (Super User DO) take a deep breath, type very carefully, and double check your spelling and punctuation. While not every command that needs Super User power is particularly dangerous. Some can be. You should also trust your source, but that goes without saying. Truthfully, this is even less dangerous than the Windows Command Prompt which does nothing to stop a non-administrator user from deleting huge swaths of the file-system if they feel so inclined.
Learning to use the Terminal in Linux is a great benefit to any end user. It grants them to power to fix problems that otherwise couldn't be fixed with strapped in a GUI. A fine example. The GUI is completely locked up. You can move the mouse, but nothing responds. In Windows, what can you do? Reboot? That's about it. In Linux, you can hit Alt-Ctrl-F1 and drop to a terminal at any time. Log in, and issue the command:
Code:
sudo /etc/init.d/slim-init restartThere are literally thousands of "cheat codes" to try in Linux. Once you get the hang of "cheat codes" you can easily pick up more advanced commands, and even writing scripts. Before you know it you'll be fearlessly issuing terminal commands in Linux and wondering how you ever got along without them before.
Thanks for listening.
Edit: Spelling and to thank dflemstr for pointing out my gdm restart error.
Edit: Replaced the gdm specific command for restarting X with EvilDragon's information.
