I pretty much live on the Linux command line. There’s a number of tools I have in my ‘toolkit’ that I use on a daily basis to automate tasks, manage systems and provide features.
apt-get is one of the most important tools to understand if you’re using an Ubuntu distribution.
apt-get is like the Apple App Store, except it’s been around for much longer and everything it provides is absolutely free. When I’m setting up a new Linux machine I immediately download and install several useful packages.
$ sudo apt-get install ipython
$ sudo apt-get install nmap
$ sudo apt-get install mercurial
and so on. Very quickly your new Linux machine can be a database server, a graphic design workstation, or a development engine.
Several apt-get commands are worth knowing
$ apt-get install nmap, for example, installs a powerful port-scanner.
$ apt-get remove nmap removes the package we just installed.
$ apt-get upgrade upgrades all installed packages to the latest version
Even more powerfully,
$ do-release-upgrade upgrades your Ubuntu system when a new one is released. To find out what version of Ubuntu you’re running, I suggest $ lsb_release. On my machine it gives the following output:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 13.10
Release: 13.10
Codename: saucyCheck http://www.ubuntu.com/ to see what the latest release version is.
Have fun!