Ten Steps to Linux Survival: Essentials for Navigating the Bash Jungle

Linux systems are everywhere today, even in companies once considered "pure Windows." If you’re a sysadmin, network administrator, or developer in a small Windows shop, you may have to jump in and fix a system problem when your site goes down. What if you have no Linux knowledge? This short guide provides tips to help you survive.

Linux systems may appear in your shop as virtual machines or in the cloud, including web servers, databases, mobile device managers, version control, and monitoring systems. When one of them falters, this primer leads you through some diagnostic and recovery tasks so you can quickly get your site back up.
Connect to a Linux system with OpenSSH and PuTTY secure shells
List files and directories, and move around within the file system
Safely inspect the file contents without changing them
Narrow your search by using commands to locate specific files
Use the grep command to search for error messages inside a file
Determine real-time system state to find underlying problems
Examine disk utilization and zero in on space-hogging files
Transfer suspect files from Linux to Windows for later analysis
Use commands to start, stop, restart, or even kill unresponsive services
Know where to find help when troubleshooting isn’t enough

Jim Lehmer has worked with computer systems for over three decades. He’s been involved with software development in various roles, including programmer, systems programmer, software engineer, team lead, and architect.