GuideBeginner
Terminal and Command Line Guide
Learn to move around, inspect, compose, diagnose, and automate any machine — yours or a remote one you connect to over SSH — from the command line, without depending on a graphical interface or copying commands you don't understand. The guide starts from zero, opening the terminal for the first time, and moves through five modules: the terminal and the filesystem as a tree, working with files and text (creating, finding, reading, editing), pipes and redirection to compose commands like a language, permissions, processes, and environment variables, and remote machines, networking, and scripting. The final project is `ops-toolkit`: your own diagnostic kit with three shell scripts — environment verification, layered network probing, and a remote SSH report — that you run and defend live, not a screenshot.
- 40
- lessons
- 5
- modules
- English · Spanish
- available in
- Yes
- certificate
- Free
- access
Outcomes
What you'll be able to do
- Navigate the filesystem as a tree, with absolute and relative paths, and read `ls -la` output column by column
- Learn any new command on your own by reading its manual (`man`, `--help`, `tldr`) without depending on a tutorial
- Create, copy, move, and delete files and folders applying an explicit safety criterion, never `rm` blindly
- Find any file with `find` and any line of text across an entire project with `grep`
- Understand a process's three streams — stdin, stdout, stderr — redirect output, and build pipelines (`|`) that chain commands like a language
- Read and change permissions and ownership (`chmod`, `chown`, `sudo`) applying the principle of least privilege
- Find and terminate processes — including the one holding a port — and fix a `command not found` by understanding the `PATH`
- Diagnose a network layer by layer (DNS, reachability, port, HTTP response) and connect to a remote machine over SSH with key-based authentication
- Write shell scripts with arguments, conditionals, loops, and `set -euo pipefail`, knowing when it's time to switch to Python
Before you start
What you need to bring
It's for you if...
- Anyone who has never opened a terminal and needs the real starting point, with nothing assumed
- Devs who copy commands from a tutorial without understanding them and want to stop depending on that
- Anyone who needs to diagnose and automate tasks on a remote machine over SSH
- Devs preparing to work with Docker, the cloud, or CI/CD, who first need the Linux and networking layer those tools take for granted
Requirements and materials
- None technical: no prior experience with the terminal, Linux, or programming is assumed
- A computer running macOS, Linux, or Windows 10/11 — on Windows, WSL2 is installed during the guide, free and step by step
- Administrator permissions on your own machine and an internet connection; total cost is zero
Content
The syllabus, module by module
Open any of them to see its lessons.
- 1. Introduction: the silent prerequisite of half the industry
- 2. What is a shell and why the terminal still wins
- 3. Your terminal on macOS, Linux, and Windows (WSL)
- 4. The anatomy of a command: flags and arguments
- 5. Reading the manual: man, --help, and tldr
- 6. The filesystem as a tree: absolute and relative paths
- 7. Navigating and inspecting: pwd, ls, and cd
- 8. Project: a treasure hunt through your machine
- 1. Introduction: creating, finding, and reading without opening an editor
- 2. Creating files and folders: mkdir and touch
- 3. Copying, moving, and deleting without destroying anything
- 4. Reading files: cat, less, head, and tail
- 5. Finding files with find
- 6. Searching inside files with grep
- 7. Editing in the terminal: nano and vim survival
- 8. Project: audit a project you do not know
- 1. Introduction: commands that connect to each other
- 2. The Unix philosophy: small tools that compose
- 3. The three streams: stdin, stdout, and stderr
- 4. Redirecting output to files: >, >>, 2>, and /dev/null
- 5. Pipes: connecting one command's output to another's input
- 6. The text toolkit: sort, uniq, cut, tr, and sed
- 7. Exit codes and chaining: $?, &&, ||, and ;
- 8. Project: a log analysis pipeline
- 1. Introduction: who you are, what is running, and what your shell knows
- 2. Users, groups, and why permissions exist
- 3. Reading and changing permissions: rwx, octal, and chmod
- 4. Ownership, sudo, and root: dangerous power
- 5. Processes, jobs, and signals: ps, top, kill, and jobs
- 6. Environment variables and the PATH
- 7. Configuring your shell: rc files, aliases, and dotfiles
- 8. Project: the clinic of a broken environment
- 1. Introduction: leaving your machine and automating the work
- 2. How machines talk: IP, ports, and DNS
- 3. Troubleshooting the network from the terminal: ping, dig, curl, and ss
- 4. Connecting with SSH and key authentication
- 5. Moving files and sessions that survive: scp, rsync, and tmux
- 6. Your first shell script
- 7. Logic and safety in scripts: conditionals, loops, and set -euo pipefail
- 8. Final project: remote diagnostics toolkit
Common questions
What people usually ask
No limit. It's a free guide: come in whenever you like, as often as you like.
No. Modules run from easier to harder, but you can jump to the one you need. Progress is saved per lesson.
Whatever is needed is listed under “What you need to bring”, above. If nothing is listed there, you can start from zero.
In the Club's WhatsApp group, and every two weeks there's a live with an instructor where questions get worked through.
Yes. It's issued automatically once you finish every lesson, with a verifiable code you can share on LinkedIn.
Start whenever you like
What students say
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