Now that I've scared most of you away with the beginners guide for BASH, let's get to the basics of the Terminal in an easy to understand format.
The entire guide I linked is on one webpage, so it might be a good idea to bookmark it, or save it for future reference. (Bookmarked pages can disappear)
It really is a very good quick reference guide when you get better with the terminal.
To save, just right click any whitespace on the page, and 'Save As' from the context menu that pops up. (This functionality should be in all Linux distros.)
Or, if you don't have the page opened in a browser, just right click the link and select Save Link As. It will open your file manager and allow you to save the page itself.
(There are no pictures, so just saving as HTML is fine, you won't lose anything.)
If you would like to DL (download) the page from the Terminal, (Oh Goodie, we get to play with BASH Commands, and yes, it can be done - this is Linux.
) read the following instructions first, then execute the command.
When I use an abbreviation and then put the meaning in parenthesis after it, that means I'll probably be using the abbreviation from then on. All abbreviations will be in all Caps.
==============================================================
TYPE this command into a Terminal and hit enter
AFTER reading the following breakdown.
If you are using Debian or a derivative, pressing Ctrl + Alt + t, all at the same time, should launch the terminal.
If not, look for the terminal in your menu and launch it. (I won't get into key bindings for now.)
Go ahead and launch a terminal now, you will need it before we actually DL. You might want to resize your browser and terminal window so you can see them both at the same time, too.
wget -E -H -k -K -p http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/Bash-Beginners-Guide.html==============================================================
Let's see what this command actually does.
The synopsis of the command is:
wget [option] [URL]
wget - comes standard on most full distros. Your lighter weight distributions may not have it. If the command line throws an error like " wget not found ", you'll have to install it.
To Install:At the command line type: apt-get install wget
(Hit enter)
On distros 16.04 or newer, you have to use apt instead of apt-get: apt install wget
(Then hit enter)
Enter your password when prompted. You won't see your password in the terminal, just type it in and hit enter.
Watch what's going on in the terminal so you know what it should be doing.
To find your release (14.04, 15.09, 16.04, etc.), if you forgot, just type:
lsb_release -a
at the terminal (and hit enter.)
From now on it will be assumed that when I give a terminal command for you to use, that you will hit the enter button at the end of the command. I won't be typing it out any more. 
(Did you try the lsb command ? Pretty cool, eh ?)
----------------------- Breakdown ------------------------
Wget: A Linux program that retrieves content from web servers.
-E -H -k -K -p: These are known as command line switches (or a command switch.) They are extra arguments that are added to the command. They are the [option] in the Synopsis above. Each software program has it's own set of command line switches.
You can get information on what each one does by typing in the terminal: man <program name>
So for wget, you would type:
man wget
BTW, wget has a very easily understandable man page. Go ahead and check it out.
(Just press q to return to the command prompt when you are done reading.)
Man [page] is short for Manual pages - the program documentation.
From now on, whenever you see something typed in-between the less-than, greater-than signs (<xxxx>), it is a generalization instead of a specific name.
The <xxxx> is a linux convention and you will come across it a lot when looking for terminal commands online.
(In programming these are known as Generics, or Generic Types. Generics are general types until something of specific value is substituted for them at runtime.)
Example:
The file path to your Desktop folder would be written generically (because everyone has a different user / login name,) as:
/home/<username>/Desktop
Whereas when you type the file path in the terminal, you would replace <username> with your username (the name you login with.)
So if your username was Big_Momma, (remember the terminal is case sensitive, file paths have to be exactly correct,) the file path to enter into the terminal would look like this:
/home/Big_Momma/Desktop
Don't bother searching for the switches in the man page, I'll identify them, but I hope you looked at the man page. That is one of the more easy ones to understand. Some are much worse, but they all pretty much follow the same syntax.
Command Switches Used: -E adjust-extension: This adds .html to the end of the saved page, file name, if it doesn't exist. Sometimes on the server, the file extension is not included. This way when you click on the saved page to view it later on, Linux knows to open it in the default web browser because of the HTML file association.
-H span-hosts: If part of the web page, for example, pictures, are hosted on another website, this switch will recursively retrieve them.
-k Convert page hyperlinks to make them suitable for local viewing. This will make the embedded hyperlinks in the DLed page work from your machine if you are connected to the web. When downloading a page, sometimes the embedded links are symlinked within the website. This switch will convert them to a direct web link so all you have to do is click them to be taken to the link location.
-K After downloading and converting the webpage, back up the original downloaded page with the extension .orig appended to the filename.
-p page-requisites: Downloads all the files necessary for the saved page to display exactly as you see it displayed in your browser.
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/Bash-Beginners-Guide.html The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the webpage we want to DL. It tells wget the webpage to save.
Wget is a pretty powerful software program and works well.
Another thing to remember is that wget DLs to the folder that BASH is currently operating under. The default when you bring up the terminal (BASH) is your home folder.
Now that the command has been explained, go ahead and run it. Watch what it does.
If you followed these instructions and all went well, you should have a copy of the bash beginners guide in your home folder. /home/<username>
I'll be writing these guides under the assumption that the people reading them have absolutely no experience whatsoever, but after a few of these, you'll be comfortable using the terminal, and can impress your friends to boot.
As a baseline, I'm running a Devuan system, which is a Debian derivative that doesn't use the new systemd (system Daemon - a Linux Daemon [pronounced Demon] is the equivalent of a Windows service - Windows services are listed in the Windows Task manager.)
It uses a different boot loader that terminates once the system is fully booted up. Systemd ties into every daemon that runs on your system. This is dangerous, but it makes things easy for the programmers writing the code for the operating system. That's why it was developed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SystemdMy system is a very lightweight spin of Devuan, so everything that works for me will most likely work for any Debian system or it's derivatives. (Ubuntu, and it's derivatives, Linux Mint, Xubuntu,
MX-14 <-- a sweet little distro you can download
HERE, etc. .) If your package manager is Apt, Software Center, (both front-ends for Dpkg,) etc, you're running a Debian derivative, and most of the commands I post will work.
(Are you hyper-aware ? (a more dignified name for paranoid)
Hover over the embedded links I posted without clicking them and the address of the link will show in your status bar. )
(If you want to avoid systemd - if you're running an old single core system, or just don't agree with the philosophy (like me), a distribution of 14.04 or earlier will still have System V init. Or, if you have a new machine, a Devuan distro is your answer.)
More to come... .
