#learning linux

That is a Raspberry Pi. It is literally a computer (albeit not a very good one for heavy applications) on a single board. The main purpose of these being released by the Raspberry Pi foundation is to help educate young children with programming and debugging software. I believe this is a great cause and the fact they've also released them to the public has been outstanding. They're community is also one of the fastest growing and helpful I have ever been a part of. 

The concept of single board computers is not a new one, with rivals such as the Pandaboard or DreamPlug being around for much longer. The main difference though is the price:

Raspberry Pi - $35

DreamPlug - $149

Pandaboard - $189  

As you can see, it is much more affordable for tinkering around with as if it breaks you won't be losing a whole load of money. 

As I'm due to get one of these in late July/early August due to the demand, I decided that it is finally time to learn Linux as different variations of Linux are used as Operating Systems on the Raspberry Pi. 

For anyone who is reading this, I highly recommend the website LinuxCommand.org. I've personally being using the pdf version of this website (which is available from the website itself) and it brings you step by step through the process of the command line, teaching basic commands and functions that you could access and teaching why you would these commands. I've found it to be invaluable for my self teaching experience. 

So far I've gotten to the start of Chapter 5 within the Learning the Shell unit and am able to do minor things such as print a calendar on the command line and see the files and folders within a directory regardless if they're hidden or not. 

I've also learned of some of the powerful functions that Linux has within the command line such as the ability to view text files from within the command line. This surprised me as I did not know that such a function existed within a command line.