Linux/Unix basics

Well.. I feel awkward, here I was about to write up a nice page for you all but instead I found some awesome links, but they still suck. So I'll give you a few steps.

Get Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu
Run it - It's bootable so burn it to a CD and boot - I have torrents for the ISOs
Open up a terminal
Enter in this command: man man

However, here's a subject that is often misrepresented. Shell programming. Let's pretend we're using bash (Bourne again shell).

Note: A line beginning with a $ denotes the prompt. Anything after a # is a comment

Input/Output (I/O) Redirection

Basics.

File descriptor	abbreviated name	expanded name	Description
0	stdin	standard input	Usually keyboard input
1	stdout	standard output	Usually what you want
2	stderr	standard error	Usually an error or warning message

$ x=`ls` # Insert the standard output (hereforth stdout) of the command ls into the variable x.
$ echo $x # Display what is in the variable x. (Currently the output of ls)
$ echo "$x" # Display what is in the variable x. (Currently the output of ls)
$ echo '$x' # Display $x