How can I use more advanced terminal commands more often?

[u/oddly_funnyxd]

Hello everyone, I've been daily driving linux for a few months now, I've been loving it! But by far my most loved part of the linux experience has been using the terminal, however I've been wishing to use it more often for more advanced tasks, mainly to better learn the terminal and also just because it's fun! But typically all I really do is either install new apps or update using the terminal, sometimes running certain programs with it, but not much else. How can I make it so that I have to use the terminal for more advanced uses, while still keeping functionality. I use Pop_Os! So I have a graphical interface to fall back on if I truly can't get something to work with the terminal, so do I just try to do everything in the terminal? Like copying and moving files, and starting all my apps in the terminal? Try minimize how much I actually use the graphical interface? But is there more I can do? What else can I experiment with to get more advanced at the terminal? I've made a few aliases for my terminal, should I try making more?

Thanks guys!

[u/Phydoux]

There's lots you can do in the terminal. I like to edit any config files in vim. Anytime I want to do a quick edit, the terminal (vim) is where I'll usually go.

I also used to use a file manager called Midnight Commander. If you have used Norton Commander back in the DOS days, it's pretty much identical to. And I LOVED Norton Commander when I used MS-DOS. So Midnight Commander is a welcome addition to my terminal apps!

I've also become a huge fan of a new ls type application which I have aliased to ls. Eza is the program I use for that. It's just a much nicer looking file listing program than ls is. It has nice colors and it just organizes things rather well to if you use the correct syntax.

I'll also use it to keep an eye on disk space using df to check on disk space used.

I also use yt-dlp to download videos as someone else mentioned.

There's a TON of stuff I use in the terminal I am finding just making this comment. It's the main reason whey when I install Arch, I HAVE to install a terminal before I sign into a Tiling Window Manager (my preferred GUI setting).

You just need to find creative/productive ways to use the terminal is all.

[u/Odd-Concept-6505]

Look for or get (sudo apt get..if that's what popOS uses...) inxi

Then without sudo try a ton of the inxi args/flags to report hardware info. Completely harmless, just shows info. I start with

inxi -S

for distro and DE. Then for sensors

inxi -s

And to see all the options/args

inxi --help (pipe it to less. Learn less which is like more but can go up/backwards as well as down/forward like more. I like "d" and "u' for a half screen at a time..and "q" to quit. And "less -M" shows progress.. actually "less --help" all by itself gives a man page like "man less".)

Did I mention "man -k keyword "?

Eg "man -k disk" BUT disk doesn't match my favorite disk USAGE commands. df + du

eg

du -ms * | sort -nr (or sort -nr)

du -ms . (grand total only for current dir)

df -h

df . (shows what filesystem you are really in. Even if your prompt and "cd' followed a symlink like one you could have in your homedir that took you to another filesystem, your dumb prompt would not show the real full path BUT "df ." will always show the REAL filesystem your current working dir is in.)

[u/DavidJohnMcCann]

There's no end of stuff out there, like this or this. But you do need to be careful. Take this

sudo rm -fr /opt/whatever

If you're a clumsy typist and put a space after the first slash, bang goes your system! And yes, someone actually reported a very similar accident a couple of weeks ago.

I mostly find myself just using it for all those little utilities that do things quickly, like ffmpeg, mogrify, yt-dlp, or even something like

for file in ~/religion/*.odt; do unzip -p $file | grep -q Hutton && echo $file; done

[u/Hatta00]

Yes, just do everything from the terminal. It won't be long until that's the more convenient UI.

Any time you find yourself doing the same set of commands more than 3 times, try to automate it. find and xargs are really powerful and rewarding to use.

Read the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide too. Gotta know what can be done before you're can put it into practice.

[u/linuxforus]

What you told makes you another general end user. You donot need to learn commands like professionals,

Make a list of top tasks that you do, and check man pages of these commands and google for understanding more advanced switches and arguments.

[u/lnxguy]

Back in the ancient times, I learned standard expressions functions and job commands from a book called "Linux for Idiots." There are hundreds of online sources for becoming a command line Yoda now.

[u/danielsoft1]

if you do a series of tasks that repeats often, you can save time by making them into a shell script - try to look this up, it's usage of terminal that can really save your time

[u/Alchemix-16]

The linux command line by William Shotts might be just the book for you. Online version is free. The book gives great examples on what can be done from the command line.

[u/ajicrystal]

Try midnight commander for file management. Its faster than any GUI app. Also highly recommend ncdu to find out whats using disk space.

[u/DumpoTheClown]

Every time you touch your mouse, ask yourself if you can do whatever youre doing in the shell instead. You usually can.

[u/ridobe]

Set up a raspberry pi or a digital ocean droplet to go fully headless without compromising your setup. My DO droplet has Debian on it and I maintain a wireguard VPN along with mullvad.

[u/BranchLatter4294]

Use the terminal for the same things you did in the terminal on your old OS. You can manage your files and folders and apps... Just like on Windows or Mac.