The HelpMe page, for a short listing of terminal programs.
	Most, if not all, of these binaries are GNU GPL covered and can be found in many OSes other than linux. More applications will be linked to the details page in time. What we need to know about terminal applications is that unlike the GUI, where all objects are visible and therefore known to us by default (menus, buttons, checkboxes etc.), in the command line we can not use a command before we know it. That's why the command line seems difficult at the beginning; we really need to achieve a level of knowledge before we can touch it. Old Windows - DOS Command-liners will have a much easier time adapting to the shell, but new users, used by default to an object-oriented interaction, will need some help. That's why of all pages that "help" in this site, this one has won the "HelpMe" title.
	Useful terminal applications - utilities:
apropos	Searches the whatis database for strings. Try apropos mp3.
cal	Display a calendar. Try cal -y.
cat	Print the contents (ascii or binary) of a file, or standard input or device file etc.
cd	Change directory. If applied alone then moves you to your ~home dir.
chmod	Change permissions of user, group, others. Works recursively with -R.
chown	Change ownership (user:group). Works recursively with -R.
cp	The copy command. cp -r copies recursively (subdirectories).
emacs	Finest text editor from the creator of Free Software, Richard Stallman.
file	Report the type of a file. doesn't rely on extensions.
find	Very powerful find tool i.e. find -iname '*.html'
grep	Global Regular Expression Print. Query contents of standard output or files.
head	Filter the first lines of an input or file
less	Browse the contents of a file, works with arrow keys and quits with q.
links	Web browser.
ls	List contents of path.
lynx	Web browser.
man	Manual pages manipulator. Try man vi.
mkdir	The make directory command makes directories with your ownership.
mc	Midnight Commander, a NC clone from the Gnome-Gimp team.
minicom	Serial-modem terminal emulation program, Ansi & VT100 compatible with Zmodem upload-download capabilities.
more	Big listing separator. Try enter, space, q. Goes only straightforward.
mpg123	Mp3 player. Try mpg123 *.mp3 inside a directory containing mp3s
mpg321	Based on mpg123.
nano	Pico-like standalone text editor for those that don't want pine.
ogg123	Ogg (modern famous sound encoding format) player.
passwd	Change your password as a user (it will be asked twice).
pico	Simplest text editor.
pine	Console Mail application. It contains pico in the package.
pwd	Print name of the current/working directory.
rm	Remove a file and optionally a directory with the -r parameter.
rmdir	Remove an empty directory only. If the dir is not empty, rmdir will stop with an exit status.
sort	Sort file or input to file or output
tail	Filter the last  lines of an input or file
touch	Create an empty-new-file (i.e. touch test.txt) or update timestamps.
tree	Print the directory tree (not always included in distros).First try tree -d -L 2 /usr
vi	Astounding text editor with capabilities that wouldn't fit in this site.
w3m	Web browser.
watch	Periodical program executor.
wc	Word Count (lines, words and characters)
whatis	Short description of commands: try whatis ls. Whatis searches for exact string.
workbone	Play cd audio.
mv	Move a file or directory.
	Keep the following advices in mind: 1) Limit your experiments inside your home directory and do not use the name of root in vain. The unix administrator privileges are for specific purposes only, like changing runlevels, services, networks, daemons, installing or removing packages etc. In fact, you don't need to be root even to configure and compile programs from source code. 2) Always see the available man pages. These utilities seem simple, but try for example whatis cp or man cp and you will see available descriptions, abilities and parameters. 3) Most terminal utils can either be "forced" to do a job, or work "interactively", asking for confirmation.
	Read the pages of the Training coloumn, starting with HintMe
	See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unix_programs