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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Hands-on Introduction to Linux Commands and Shell Scripting by IBM Skills Network

4.6
stars
642 ratings

About the Course

This course provides a practical introduction to Linux and commonly used Linux / UNIX shell commands. It teaches you the basics of Bash shell scripting to automate a variety of tasks. The course includes both video-based lectures as well as hands-on labs to practice and apply what you learn. You will have no-charge access to a virtual Linux server that you can access through your web browser, so you don't need to download and install anything to perform the labs. You will learn how to interact with the Linux Terminal, execute commands, navigate directories, edit files, as well as install and update software. You will work with general purpose commands like id, date, uname, ps, top, echo, man; directory management commands such as pwd, cd, mkdir, rmdir, find, df; file management commands like cat, wget, more, head, tail, cp, mv, touch, tar, zip, unzip; access control command chmod; text processing commands - wc, grep, tr; as well as networking commands - hostname, ping, ifconfig and curl. You will create simple to more advanced shell scripts that involve Metacharacters, Quoting, Variables, Command substitution, I/O Redirection, Pipes & Filters, and Command line arguments. You will also schedule cron jobs using crontab. This course is ideal for data engineers, data scientists, software developers, DevOps professionals, and cloud practitioners who want to get familiar with frequently used commands on Linux, MacOS and other Unix-like operating systems as well as get started with creating shell scripts....

Top reviews

GR

Mar 19, 2022

Excellent course. I feel way more confident on scripting now. The clarity of the Ai instructor and the visuals were great. Well put together course. Thank you and Cheers!

SS

Mar 27, 2022

It is a well-paced course which starts from teaching the basics and builds up to some advanced subjects. It is to the point and the final assignment is really good.

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1 - 25 of 137 Reviews for Hands-on Introduction to Linux Commands and Shell Scripting

By Tyler M

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Jan 17, 2022

This need a lot more hands-on experience and explaining the *why* of commands. The course never explained any logic behind operators and commands, so it was never clear how everything worked.

By Muhammad B K

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May 17, 2022

There is so much information missing in the labs in this course esp starting from Week 3. The videos it seems like were put together in a hurry with crucial information missing and labs are even worse than the videos. They are expecting one to find, set, unset files in extremely long scripts without providing any information on how it is done. Furthermore, there is little to no information given on why certain commands are called what they are called making this course not at all intuitive. I wish someone else has reviewed this course before putting it online. Such a wasted opportunity to educate people.

By alie a

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Oct 22, 2021

A great start for beginners who wish to nail down the basics of shell scripting

By Ryan S

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Dec 26, 2021

Good overview, but should have included more using BASH scripts. Conditional statements and loops were not covered. Functions were not covered. Could have included catching errors with "$?". Running a database command in a BASH script to import or export data would be useful. Still a decent course though.

By Hager O

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Jan 3, 2023

it's really not easy and so clear for any beginner to start with!

By S V

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Feb 28, 2022

poor content

By Omar H

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Oct 7, 2021

Mini course indeed but full of new information and great explanation. Thank you.

By Deleted A

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Nov 7, 2021

really brought together the bash information well. so glad I took this

By Hannes B

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Feb 14, 2022

I missed more input on actuall scripting. There were no references to loops, if and function definition. all things that you need when writing more advanced scripts

By Mateusz K

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Jan 23, 2023

Everything that follows, is just my own personal opinion, if not stated otherwise. It is based on my observations and interactions with teaching staff in the course discussion forums (for the last few months). This is a very poorly executed course. As of today (23 Jan 2023) this course for me still does not meet the criteria of a "good resource for learning" the basics of Linux CLI and shell scripting (despite few minor improvements already applied). Some of the topics are hastily skimmed through in the videos, and almost no mechanism presented in the course is thoroughly explained. Many of the "basic concepts" for Bash (and other modern shells) like e.g. function definitions, proper error handling, etc., are not even included in the course. The importance of using correct quotations for variable/parameter expansions is also never mentioned nor explained, although it should be considered essential "best practice". Peer-graded Final Assignment instructions/"guide" contains some errors and not fully tested solutions, advertised as "working correctly". The similar can be said about grading rubrics for the final assignment - which additionally are not focused on the actual results of the code execution, but instead they're focused on the code "looks", as in its visual resemblance (being as close to "identical" as possible) to what the course's staff have written in the grading rubrics. In some cases, if the teaching staff finds a question in a discussion forum a bit more "inconvenient" for them to answer (or they're not fully capable of providing the correct answer to it in a timely manner?), then they would rather: a) ignore the question completely (the least they can do is to not get involved at all) or reply with something similar to: "we'll investigate the issue and get back to you" (the latter "get back to you" almost never happens for a "more complicated" question); b) reply with some irrelevant, impractical, incorrect, or otherwise unuseful information; c) politely ask, to not bring the subject up ever again, as it may "overwhelm the learners"; d) delete the post (most often containing a valid, correct answer to the question) from discussion forums (I see censorship as "means of hiding incompetence"?) e) repeat other learner's correct answer (sometimes only slightly modifying it); f) and also (occasionally) delete any relevant corrections (made by more knowledgeable learners) to previous staff's posts/replies; than admit to any mistakes in the course contents, admit to lack of expertise in the subject matter, and address the questions properly - e.g. by allowing open discussion on potential improvements to the course materials, and implementing all said improvements as soon as possible (after reviewing). These practices have been reported, and as I was assured by the Coursera Support Team, this kind of inappropriate teaching staff's behaviors will be escalated further, so I'm awaiting next developments of the situation. But I still think this kind of inappropriate behaviors are a clear example, of what gives (or rather should give) the Skill-Up Technologies Pvt. Ltd. / SkillUp Online (employers for the most of "teaching staff") a bad reputation. This also might give Coursera courses and IBM Skills Network a really bad publicity in a long-run. Teaching and following "best practices", and answering doubts with relevant, thorough, technical knowledge in the discussion forums of this course... is something you unlikely/rarely find coming from the teaching staff. Generally, teaching staff don't seem to be fit for the job of thoroughly explaining the course materials and teaching the proper "understanding" of your mistakes (as hard as they try to be seen "cooperative"), but as I see it, they're better suited for a) only requesting you to "copy and paste" their code samples, that they believe should work best as a "correct solution" in their opinions (side note, again, "my opinion" - their code doesn't work all that great, and is not written with all the "best practices" in mind) and b) deleting "inconvenient" posts from the discussion forums whenever they please. To sum it up: in its current form, and with its current teaching staff replying in the discussion forums, I'd definitely not recommend this course to anyone, especially beginners. And I'd discourage seeking any "great" learning experience from Skill-Up Technologies Pvt. Ltd. / SkillUp Online - thus I'd strongly suggest searching for some other, better resources on the subjects regarding basics of working with Linux CLI and shell scripting.

By Amanda W

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Aug 1, 2022

This course is terrible for beginners!! None of the modules go in depth, it was difficult to understand because none of the commands are explained, and the final project is super advanced for what is actually taught in the class. I feel like I learned almost nothing!

By Mohd J H

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Nov 13, 2022

would prefer a live instructor. not a generic AI voice reading a PPT. would not recommend.

By Tim Z

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Nov 20, 2021

Awesome guided introduction into the Linux world of shell scripting. Only caveat for me was that the course was a bit too shallow. Wish that it would have at least touched upon concepts, such as case statements, conditions, exit statutes and return codes and loops. Overall gained a thourough understanding of the basics and the hands-on labs helped to apply and test this knowledge.

By Sheikh S K

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Feb 19, 2022

I was always afraid of forgetting shell scripting due to which I feared & I never tried to learn them. But after doing this course I feel very confident & it's only possible because of the well organised course content and even more because of the VIRTUAL LABS. The labs do help a lot. If you really want to learn BASH SCRIPTING, do the exercises sincerely.

By HAFED-EDDINE B

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Feb 9, 2022

Very interesting section, I find it is very efficient , sufficient and collects every thing we need with simplified and clear way. thanks to instructor's stuff

By Domingo l

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Apr 26, 2022

Excellent course, very informative and educational. Very clear and understandable documentation. the lab. was very excellent and very clear to implement it.

By Gina R L

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Dec 22, 2021

Is a very good introduction to Linux commands and scripting, with tools to practice incorporated so you don't need a virtual machine with linux

By Aniket Y

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Dec 18, 2021

It was wonderful experience learning shell scripting. Scheduling jobs was the best part. Thank you instructors

By Santiago B

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Oct 28, 2021

Muy completo a nivel practico y teórico.

By Peter D

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Aug 8, 2021

Excellent Linux short courses.

By Muhammad Q B Y

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Dec 23, 2021

Great Learning Experience

By Saifulla .

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Aug 9, 2021

Good Experience.

By Pranshula P

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Nov 4, 2021

Good course

By Julio A L H

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Aug 22, 2021

Very nice!

By Adriano B

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Nov 30, 2021

Muito bom