Setting Up Your Linux Environment

Three paths to a Linux prompt

Whether you're on Windows, macOS, or a Chromebook, there's a comfortable way in. They all end in the same place — a Bash shell — so don't agonize over the choice. Pick the one that matches your machine and move on.

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) runs a genuine Ubuntu inside Windows with almost no overhead — no separate desktop, no rebooting. If you're on Windows 10 or 11, this is the easiest and fastest path, and it's what most Windows-based DevOps engineers use day to day.

A virtual machine runs a complete, isolated Linux computer in a window using software like VirtualBox (free) or VMware. You get the full Ubuntu desktop, and because it's sandboxed you can break things freely. It uses more memory and disk, but it's the most "real Linux" feel on any host OS, including macOS.

A cloud instance is a Linux server you rent from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or a smaller host. There's nothing to install locally — you connect over the network with SSH. Many providers have a free tier, and this mirrors exactly how you'll touch real production servers later.

Standing up Ubuntu

We'll use Ubuntu throughout this course because it's beginner-friendly, hugely popular, and the commands you learn transfer to almost every other distribution. Here's how to get going on each path.

WSL on Windows (recommended for Windows users)

Open PowerShell as Administrator (right-click the Start menu → "Terminal (Admin)") and run a single command:

wsl --install

This enables the required Windows features and installs Ubuntu by default. Reboot when prompted. On first launch Ubuntu asks you to create a username and password — this is your Linux account, separate from your Windows login. After that you'll see something like:

Installing, this may take a few minutes...
Please create a default UNIX user account.
Enter new UNIX username: maya
New password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

maya@DESKTOP-7QK3:~$

That last line is your prompt. You're in. From now on, open the "Ubuntu" app (or type wsl in any terminal) to get back here.

A virtual machine with VirtualBox

If you'd rather have a self-contained Linux computer, the recipe is:

1. Install VirtualBox from virtualbox.org.
2. Download the Ubuntu Desktop ISO from ubuntu.com/download.
3. In VirtualBox, click New, name it "Ubuntu", give it at least 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM, and 25 GB disk, and point it at the ISO.
4. Start the VM and follow the Ubuntu installer (choose "Install Ubuntu", set your timezone, create your user).
5. When it reboots into the desktop, open the Terminal app (search "terminal" in Activities, or press Ctrl+Alt+T).

A cloud instance over SSH

Cloud providers let you launch a Linux server in minutes. On AWS you'd create a free-tier EC2 instance with the Ubuntu image; the provider gives you a public IP address and a private key file. You then connect from any terminal with SSH (we cover SSH in depth in Section 15):

ssh -i my-key.pem [email protected]

The first time, SSH asks you to confirm the server's fingerprint — type yes. Then you're at a prompt on a machine that might be in a data center hundreds of miles away:

The authenticity of host '203.0.113.42' can't be established.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

ubuntu@ip-172-31-8-12:~$

Terminal basics: reading the prompt

However you got here, you're now staring at a terminal — the text window — running a shell called Bash, which is the program that reads what you type and runs it. The little line waiting for your input is the prompt. It's not just decoration; it's a status line packed with information.

Reading left to right: maya is your username, @ubuntu is the hostname (the machine's name), ~/projects is your current directory (where ~ is shorthand for your home folder), and the $ means "Bash is ready — type a command." If you ever see a # instead of $, you're acting as root, the superuser who can change anything on the system, so slow down and double-check what you type.

You run a command by typing it and pressing Enter. The shell does the work and prints any result below, then shows you a fresh prompt. A few comfort tips before your first commands:

• Tab completion: start typing and press Tab to auto-complete file and command names. It saves typos and time.
• History: press the ↑ arrow to recall previous commands so you don't retype them.
• Stop a stuck command with Ctrl+C, and clear the screen with Ctrl+L or the clear command.

# DO NOT run this — it tries to delete everything on the system
sudo rm -rf /

Your first commands

Time to actually do something. These three commands are read-only — they just report information, so you can't break anything. Type each one and press Enter.

First, ask the system who you are:

$ whoami
maya

It prints your username. Simple, but it confirms the shell is listening and tells you which account you're operating as — genuinely useful when you hop between servers and accounts.

Next, ask for the current date and time:

$ date
Sun Jun 14 10:42:08 UTC 2026

Notice the timezone (here UTC). Servers are very often set to UTC, which matters when you're reading logs later in the course.

Finally, ask the system to describe itself:

$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 6.8.0-31-generic #31-Ubuntu SMP x86_64 GNU/Linux

This one packs a lot in. uname means "Unix name", and the -a flag means "all info". It tells you the kernel name (Linux), the hostname (ubuntu), the kernel version, and the hardware architecture (x86_64). That word "flag" — a short option starting with - that changes how a command behaves — is a pattern you'll meet on nearly every command from here on.

Want to know more about any command before you run it? Two quick habits will carry you a long way (and we devote a whole lesson to them in Section 2):

# a quick built-in summary
$ date --help

# the full manual page (press q to quit)
$ man date

Further reading

• Microsoft Docs — Install WSL on Windows
• Ubuntu — Install Ubuntu Desktop tutorial
• The GNU Bash Reference Manual