Linux & Command Line Fundamentals Professional Certificate

This beginner course teaches Linux and the command line using only free software. It is written for young people, students and staff of small organisations in South Sudan and East Africa who may have older laptops and limited data. You can practise on a live USB, in a free virtual machine or in Windows Subsystem for Linux, and everything is done in a practice folder or a throwaway environment so that your real files stay safe.

You begin with what Linux really is, the difference between the kernel and a distribution, and what open source means. You then learn to move around with pwd, ls and cd, work with files using mkdir, cp, mv and rm with strong safety habits, and read permissions with ls -l, chmod and chown. Later modules cover processes, searching text with grep, pipes, sort, uniq and wc, finding files, installing software with a package manager (apt is the example, and other distributions differ), and basic shell scripting with variables, if and for.

The course has six modules with 24 written lessons, a quiz after every module and a 12-question final examination, plus a capstone project in which you write and test a small backup script and assess yourself against a checklist. It is designed for about 20 hours of study at your own pace.

On completion you receive a Bang Ti Lenydoor certificate of completion. It is not an accredited qualification, and the course does not promise jobs, income or funding. Distribution menus and screens change between versions, so use the equivalent option on your own system.