This short howto will give an overview over the base Linux shell commands.

to get into the shell from inside a gui, you type "ctrl+alt+f" the "f" is one of the function keys on the upper end of your keyboard.

to get back to the gui, you usually type "alt+f7"

on the shell you login with your user information (login/password), the password is not shown while typing.

the linux shell has some keyboard functions, to make the work on it easier for you.

for example, if you type in a few chars, with a minimum of two, of the full name of the command, and then press the "tab" key, the the command gets completed, so you dont have to type the full words all the time.

you can even move through the already used commands with the cursor keys "up" and "down".

to get a full list of all typed in commands, you type in "history |more" or "history |less", and then scroll through them.

if you search for a certain typed in command, but cant remember the whole string you typed, type "history |grep something", where "something" is the word of the string, that you remember.

if youre searching for commands to use on the shell, "apropos" is a neat lil program, that will do the job of a meta search engine for you:

"apropos cd" shows all commands on your system, that are associated somehow with the word "cd".

if you want to find the location of a program, you may use the commands "which", "where" or "locate".

to get informations about what is associated to a program or a library file, you type "ldd filename", that will list informations about other programs and librarys, that this program is linked with.

to get a better view over a broken program, you may use the "strace" command, by executing "strace programname" you get a debug log output, that will eventually reveal the error.

to uninstall a program, that youve installed from the sourcecode, keep the unpacked sourcecode directory, most of todays program sources come with uninstalation routines, have a look into the "Makefile" of the sourcecode, to get an overview over the install and uninstall options.