The Linux Command Line for Beginners (Ubuntu)
Ubuntu's official, friendly introduction to the terminal: opening one, creating and moving files, pipes and redirection, the superuser and hidden files. A short, careful first hour at the command line that works in Ubuntu on WSL as well as on a Linux desktop.
Guide
Other
Canonical
About an hour
Beginner
Free
What it is
"The Linux command line for beginners" is a tutorial in Ubuntu's own desktop documentation, published by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. It replaces an older tutorial on ubuntu.com that many people learned from. It walks through opening a terminal, creating folders and files, moving and manipulating files, "a bit of plumbing" (pipes and redirection), the command line and the superuser, hidden files and cleaning up, with suggestions for further reading.
Who it is for
Complete beginners who have never typed a command, and anyone who just installed Ubuntu on a laptop or in WSL on Windows. Nothing is assumed beyond being able to open the terminal. Most of it also works on other Linux distributions and, with small differences, in the macOS terminal.
Why it is a good first step
Most beginners pick up commands from scattered videos and never learn why the shell behaves as it does. This tutorial is short and deliberate: each step builds on the last, and it explains ideas such as the current working directory, relative paths and why sudo should be used carefully. The section on the superuser is especially useful, because running commands as root without thinking is one of the most common ways beginners damage a system.
How to use it
Type every command yourself rather than copying and pasting, and do the steps in a scratch folder so you can delete everything afterwards. When a command surprises you, open its manual page with man before moving on.
Time needed
About an hour at a relaxed pace. The older version of the tutorial estimated under an hour.
What to do next
After this, move on to a longer resource such as William Shotts' free book The Linux Command Line or MIT's Missing Semester lectures, and practise with OverTheWire Bandit, which turns shell commands into a game played over SSH.
Common questions
Does it work in WSL? Yes. Ubuntu on WSL is a normal Ubuntu command line; skip only the parts about opening the terminal from the Ubuntu desktop.
Is it free? Yes. It is part of Ubuntu's public documentation.
Is it enough on its own? It is a start, not a full course. Its value is in getting the basics right before you learn more.
Ready to start?
Opens on Canonical in a new tab.
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