Now it’s time to discuss one of the most mysterious and confusing parts of Linux to a Windows user: the command line. To most Windows users the prospect of typing in what you want your computer to do is completely foreign and thus intimidating.

The command line can be very intimidating to new users. Having to use the command line is one of the chief complaints and fears for a lot of users who venture into Linux. But it doesn't have to be scary, and you don't need to know everything to dip your toe in and find out how useful the CLI can be.

Noobs getting their first taste of the Linux OS tend to feel a little lost. Even though the Gnome and KDE GUIs are simple and easy to navigate, it's hard to ignore the realization that you don't really know what lurks beneath the surface of this powerful operating system.

Getting started with Linux can be an intimidating task, particularly for people who have never tried any operating system besides Windows. In truth, however, very little about Linux is actually difficult to use. It's simply a different OS, with its own approach to doing things.

Today’s “Newbie Tip” is learning some basics about the “Command Line Interface” or as it’s mostly referred to, “Command Line”. The command line gives the user the ability to interact with the operating system by typing via a text terminal.

GNU find is a powerful command-line utility that lets you search for files and folders in a hierarchical tree directory structure. It is the backend for all those utilities out there like the graphical searching in KDE or GNOME. However, find can be a little hard to handle at first by beginners.

One of the less prominent Ubuntu features that has received an overhaul for Karmic is the command-not-found handle, which helps users find the program they're looking for when they type an unrecognized command in the terminal. Following is a brief outline of improvements made to this tiny utility, and why they matter.

One of the great features included in Linux is the IPtables firewall. Unfortunately, its command-line use is rather complex, and it can be intimidating for even experienced Linux users to configure it. Firestarter is a friendly graphical interface that allows you to configure a software firewall in Linux using the built-in IPtables/IPchains utilities.

A very quick command line tip today, for users of pretty much any Unix-based operating system, including Linux distributions. When you're looking up information on a certain web site or domain name, you might be used to using whois functions on websites such as to see who owns a domain.