Hello and thank you for joining me as we cover basic setup for someone using a Windows. We will setup and install Windows Subsystem for Linux called WSL. This is Lesson 3 of my class Linux Basics Fast, A crash course in the essential terminal commands you will need to be a programmer, IT, DevOps, or DevEx engineer. I’m so glad you are joining me today.
In this lesson, I’ll cover basic ideas around keystrokes, modifier keys, the difference between the Powershell prompt and the Linux promp, intalling & setting up WSL, and learning to interact with the linux Ubuntu.
In addition to a basic understanding of how to keystroke, what the control and meta keys mean for Linux.
If you have a mac operating system, please skip this lesson and see Lesson 2.
The agenda for today is:
- Keyboard concepts
- Installing WSL & Ubuntu
- Working with Ubuntu
- Updating Packages
- Linux Keyboard Modifier Keys
Keyboard Concepts
To start with Linux, you’ll need a Terminal. A terminal is a window that you will type commands in.
The characters or keys you type are called keystrokes. You will often type a mix of characters on your keyboard as usual — called non-modified— and the Terminal window will accept what you type as letters to be inserted.
—- typing into a terminal —
These are called non-modified input because you are not using a modifier key. What is a modifier key? You are probably already used to using the most use modifier key for anyone writing anything serious on a modern keyboard: The shift key.
This is basic computer usage knowledge everyone pretty much learns in grade school: The shift key will produce the uppercase letter instead of the lowercase letter. As well, certain keys have special characters that will be used — for example, all of the number have cooresponding keys: Shift-2 produces an @ symbol, Shift-3 produces a # symbol. Or, on depending on your keyboard, Shift-Equal Sign produces the + (plus)
For programmers these symbols have special names. Let’s go over the special names of the numeric special characters.
| What you press | How it looks | Commonly called | What programmers call this character |
| Shift 1 | ! | exclamation mark | bang |
| Shift 2 | @ | At symbol | Whirlpool |
| Shift 3 | # | Pound or hatch* symbol | mesh, hash |
| Shift 4 | $ | money sign | money, dollar |
| Shift 5 | % | division symbol | percent, mod |
| Shift 6 | ^ | Footnote symbol | carrot |
| Shift 7 | & | ampersand | ampersand |
| Shift 8 | * | astericks | star, splat |
| Shift 9 | ( | Open paren | Left paren |
Here are a few others you should note. Take note that programmers call { and } the “cruly brackets” and [ and ] the “square braces”. If you cannot remember the difference between “brackets” and “braces” (which is easy to confuse in your head), the “square” and “curly”. We will often “enclosed in curly braces” or “square braces” to talk about wrapping a part of code or configuration.
| Shift-comma | < | Less than | Less than |
| Shift-period | > | Greater than | Greater than |
| [ key (not modified) | [ | open bracket | Open bracket, open square bracket |
| ] key (not modified) | ] | close bracket | close bracket, close square brackets |
| Shift-[ | { | open brace | open brace or curly brace |
| Shift-] | } | close brace | close brace or curly brace |
| / | / | slash | forward slash |
| \ | \ | reverse slash | backslash |
| Shift-backslash | | | Vertical bar, pipe | pipe |
When you are talking with other programmers, set yourself apart and use the programmer names for these characters. It will differentiate you by showing that you’ve studied and correct names and are in the know about how to refer to the correct keystrokes.
Some Windows users or users who come from or go to Windows operating systems, where the backslash (\) is used to refer to the filesystem, often will conflate the words “slash” and “backslash,” sometimes referring to a slash as a “backslash” and/or a backslash as a “slash.”
Installing Ubuntu
Be sure to understand the difference between the PowerShell prompt and the Ubuntu Terminal.
On Windows, be sure not to confuse the Powershell prompt with the Unix terminal. To install WSL (or the Unix terminal), we will use the PowerShell prompt, so let’s start with that.
You get to the PowerShell prompt by right-clicking on the desktop -> and then choosing Open Terminal.
In Windows, you
This is the standard way you refer to folders and files in UNIX: The slashes separate folder from each other or, for the final slash, it separates the folder containing the file from the file name. Slahes denote the file hierarchy — a directed tree structure where each folder can contain any number of other folders or files. It is called a “directed” tree because it has one direction: from the root of the hard drive down (or up, depending on your perspective) into the folders and files on the system.
Install WSL
Set WSL 2 as Default (Optional): If you want to use WSL 2 by default, run the following command in PowerShell:
(Remember, you can tell youare in the Powershell because the terminal line looks something like C:\...\...)
Type
wsl --set-default-version 2
Now run the WSL install using:
wsl --install
This is actually all you need to do to install Ubuntu. What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. In other words, a flavor of Linux.
Working with Ubuntu
Once you have installed WSL and Ubuntu by running the command above, you’ll open Ubuntu by searching for it from the search bar:
Windows 10 vs Windows 11
While you’re in Windows Subsystem for Linux, you are using a UNIX-based subsystem, and therefore, the terminal inside of WSL is a UNIX-based terminal.
While you’re in Windows Subsystem for Linux, you are using a UNIX-based subsystem; therefore, the terminal inside WSL is a UNIX-based terminal. Remember, the slashes in your directory structure no longer have backslashes but instead use forward slashes.
The first thing to do is find out where we are, which you won’t even learn until the next lesson.
Type the letters pwd and hit return. pwd is our very first Unix command! It stands for print working directory, and it does just that: prints (displays to the screen) the working directory we are in.
The terminal responds with something like:
— TERMINAL “PWD” —–
This tells you “where you are” in your hard drive. This is the specific folder where your Terminal prompt will use as the directory for any further Unix commands. Specifically, this is referred to as the working directory.
The working directory is the point where you are currently browsing, right there in this terminal session. It is unique to this terminal session. If you start a new terminal window (for example, in another tab or another window), that terminal session will have its own working directory.
We will soon learn how to navigate around the working directory.
Update Packages
Next, let’s update our packages using a program called apt
Remember, you get here by searching for “Ubuntu” in the applications bar and opening the Unix terminal:
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
This will update and upgrade our installed packages. This is a common thing to do after first setting up a system on any Unix platform.
Linux Keystroke Modifier Keys (C- and M-)
In Linux, we have a concept of keyboard modifiers. These are keys you see on the lower left (and sometimes lower right) of your keyboard. In the mac, you’ll see (from left to right):
• fn (for “function”)
• control key (marked with ^ or ‘ctrl’)
• Alt key (it might be marked Option or Alt on your keyboard.)
• The command key (marked with the Windows logo), which in Linux is known as the super key.
Linux keystrokes come in either or a combination of C- (for control key) and M- for meta. When you read Unix documentation, you’ll see markers like these to indicate keystrokes you should type on your keyboard to activate that function.
When a Linux documentation tells says a keystroke begins with C-, the control key (marked “control”) is what you press.
Once you are comfortable with keystroking, let’s put them to use. For that, turn to Lesson 4, where we will learn to navigate around your Terminal window.