Linux Fundamentals

• Distinguish the kernel, shell, distribution and terminal.
• Log in, use man pages and recognise the difference between ordinary and privileged accounts.

Practical exerciseidentify the operating system, current user and shell in a Linux VM.

• Use pwd, ls and cd with absolute and relative paths.
• Locate home directories, system configuration and temporary files.

Practical exercisebuild and navigate a small directory tree without a graphical file manager.

• Create, copy, move and remove practice files with explicit paths.
• Read text with cat, less, head and tail; edit a configuration copy.

Practical exercisereorganise a sample project and update its README from the terminal.

• Interpret owner, group and other permission bits.
• Use chmod and understand when ownership changes require privilege.

Practical exercisemake a shared practice directory readable while keeping a personal file private.

• Use find to locate files by name and type.
• Filter text with grep, sort, uniq, cut and wc.

Practical exerciseproduce a report of repeated error messages from sample logs.

• Connect command output with pipes and distinguish standard output from standard error.
• Use redirection, environment variables, quoting and command history.

Practical exercisesave a filtered report and capture errors in a separate file.

• Inspect processes with ps and top; understand foreground and background jobs.
• Check addresses and connectivity with ip and ping; recognise SSH as a remote-login tool.

Practical exercisestart a background process, inspect it and stop your own process cleanly.

• Create and inspect tar archives and compare compression choices.
• Explain command exit status and use documentation to resolve unfamiliar options.

Practical exercisearchive the workspace and demonstrate the complete file-processing project.