This tutorial will give you simple but complete practical exercises to learn Terminal command lines of Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble Numbat" enough for daily computing life and as a starting point to learn further. We entitled this tutorial Jewel and Pearl to make it easier to you to remember (please try to spell it!) and to match with current Ubuntu theme that is crown and jewellery. We wish you the best.

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Start - What is a command?

A command is some text you write on a Terminal that is written after a dollar sign ( $ ) or a hashtag sign ( # ) and always followed by pressing Enter. You will make a lot of mistakes so do not hesitate to repeat and correct every single command. You will learn the rest of it by time.

(A Terminal on Ubuntu 24.04 and a command written in it and the result)

Go next! 

Do not copy-paste, write them all!

Please try your best not to copy and paste but write every single command yourself.

Go next!

1. Running Terminal and first command lines

Press Ctrl+Alt+T or find Terminal app on the Ubuntu applications menu. 

Command:

$ sudo apt-get update

Output:

[sudo] password for master:

What you should do:

Type your password without looking at the screen. There would be no stars.

Next Output:

Hit:1 http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/ubuntu noble InRelease
Hit:2 http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/ubuntu noble-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/ubuntu noble-backports InRelease
Hit:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security InRelease
Reading package lists... Done 

Picture: 

(Picture 1: your first command and first time typing password on Terminal)

What you should do:

Nothing. Know that the command above is finished successfully. Now you should understand how to do a command on Ubuntu already. 

Go next!

2. Reading your basic system information

Commands:

$ uname -a

$ lsb_release -a

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources

$ lscpu

$ lspci

$ lsusb

$ lsblk

$ lshw

Outputs:

1st command uname (short for unix name) will show your kernel version number such as 6.8.0  and what is the name of your operating system that is GNU/Linux. 

(Picture 2.1: $ uname -a)

2nd command lsb_release (short for Linux Standard Base) will show your GNU/Linux distribution information that is "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS" codenamed "noble". It is why this tutorial is entitled "Noble". This is important! 

(Picture 2.2: $ lsb_release -a)

3rd command cat (it is not Tom the enemy of Jerry) will show your Ubuntu repository information including what is enabled and what is disabled in it. For your information, Ubuntu repository is the place an Ubuntu user takes all of tens of thousands software packages from. This is important! 

For example, meanings of our picture below:

• 1) our Ubuntu laptop points to an Indonesian repository server ("kartolo") 
• 2) our Ubuntu enabled both groups of repository top (noble, noble-updates, noble-backports) and bottom (noble-security) 
• 3) and all repository enabled their four divisions (main, restricted, universe and multiverse).

(Picture 2.3: $ cat command reading sources.list file)

4th command lscpu (short for list cpu) will show your processor info such as Intel Core or AMD Ryzen with all its details. For example, picture below shows that ours is Intel Core i5 2.6GHz x86_64 architecture 64-bit with ability to operate 32-bit system.

(Picture 2.4: $ lscpu )

5th command lscpi (short for list pci) will show your peripheral hardware devices plugged into PCI slots internal to your PC or laptop and they are many such as vga, wifi, ethernet etc. 

(Picture 2.5: $ lspci )

6th command lsusb (short for list usb) will show your USB devices including mouse, flash drive, even bluetooth etc. with details.

 (Picture 2.6: $ lsusb )

7th command lsblk (short for list block devices) will show your hard disk drive(s) information. If you have USB flash drives attached, they will be shown as well. 

For example, picture below shows important disk parts of our Ubuntu laptop: 

• 1) sda is our internal hard disk drive by 298.3G or 320GB
• 2) sdb is our USB flash drive 28.7G or 32GB
• 3) sdb2 is our system partition symbolized by a single slash ( / ) or more or less like C: drive on Microsoft Windows and this is important
• 4) sda1 and sda2 are partitions dedicated to data storages

(Picture 2.7: $ lsblk )

8th command lshw (short for list hardware) will show your full computer hardware information. Yes, all of them. Beware that it could be very long.

(Picture 2.8: $ lshw -short )

Go next!

3. Running basic applications

Tip:

To close a running application press Ctrl+C in the Terminal.

Tip:

Press TAB twice to automatically complete long command.

Commands:

$ firefox

$ thunderbird

$ nautilus

$ eog

$ file-roller

$ rhythmbox

$ totem

$ baobab

$ snap-store

$ libreoffice --writer

$ libreoffice --calc

$ libreoffice --impress

Outputs:

1st command firefox will run Mozilla Firefox web browser.

2nd command thunderbird will run Mozilla Thunderbird email client. 

3rd command nautilus will run Files file manager. This is important. 

(Picture 3.3: background: command line $ nautilus | foreground: Files running)

4th command eog (short for Eye of GNOME) will run Image Viewer.

5th command file-roller will run Archive Manager. 

6th command rhythmbox will run Rhythmbox Music Player.

7th command totem will run Videos.

8th command baobab will run Disk Usage Analyzer.

(Picture 3.8: background: $ baobab command line |
foreground: Disk Usage Analyzer running) 

9th command snap-store will run App Center.

10th command libreoffice will run Writer (Word alternative).

11th command will run LibreOffice Calc (Excel alternative).

12th command will run LibreOffice Impress (PowerPoint alternative). 

Note: the Free Software Community, that is name of our community worldwide, often use this format "tar xz" so it's wise for you to know.

Note: In the 2nd command, pay attention to -O (uppercased 'o' letter) and do not confuse it with -o (lowercased 'o') for each one gives different effect.