Windows PowerShell to Linux Terminal: Your Survival Guide! 🚀

So you’ve booted in to Fedora 43, all excited and found a juicy online tutorial!! And its asking you to launch the terminal to do something - You did. But before you blindly follow these commands you really want to know what they do.

Don’t panic—this is your moment. Remember how you used to tweak the Windows Registry with esoteric hexadecimal values and pray nothing broke? Welcome to the Linux alternative: commands that are somehow more transparent and less scary.

This post documents every Linux tool/command we’ve used so far in our Fedora journey. Think of it as your personal cheat sheet. Well — Maybe don’t tattoo your favorite on your arm… but you could. 😄

Each command includes:

• A TL;DR (what it actually does)
• A bit of Windows context for fellow refugees
• A link to the man page or official docs

📋 Quick Reference Table

🔍 System Information & Monitoring

lsblk — List Block Devices

TL;DR: Shows all your storage devices (hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks) in a tree format so you know what you’re about to partition.

On Windows, you’d click through Disk Management and hope you didn’t format the wrong drive. On Linux, you run:

lsblk
lsblk -f # include filesystem info

It lists all block devices and their mount points. Crucial when you’re installing, nuking Windows, or just trying to remember which disk is which.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/lsblk.1.html

systemctl — Systemd Service Controller

TL;DR: Start, stop, enable, or disable services. Think services.msc, but actually powerful and scriptable.

Some handy examples:

sudo systemctl status service-name
sudo systemctl start service-name
sudo systemctl enable service-name
sudo systemctl restart service-name

We used this to:

• Enable and manage dnf-automatic timers

• Start/enable things that should run at boot

• Check whether background services are happy or throwing a tantrum

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/systemctl.1.html

btop — Better top (Fancy Resource Monitor)

TL;DR: A gorgeous, modern system monitor with graphs, colors, and all the stats your inner nerd craves.

Install it on Fedora:

sudo dnf install btop
btop

You get:

• Live CPU, RAM, disk, and network graphs
• Per-process stats
• Mouse support
• Themes, because of course

It’s like Task Manager, if Task Manager had a glow-up and discovered Linux.

• Help: press h inside btop

htop — Interactive Process Viewer

TL;DR: A lightweight, colorful replacement for top. More minimal than btop, but still much friendlier than the old-school top.

Install and run:

sudo dnf install htop
htop

You can:

• Sort processes by CPU, memory, etc.
• Kill processes without reaching for kill -9
• Quickly see which app is chewing your CPU

Think of htop as the ThinkPad of system monitors: not flashy, but rock solid.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/htop.1.html

lm_sensors + sensors — Hardware Temperature Monitoring

TL;DR: Lets you see CPU, GPU, and motherboard temps, plus voltages and fan speeds.

On Windows, you’d install something like HWMonitor or some sketchy motherboard vendor tool. On Fedora:

sudo dnf install lm_sensors
sudo sensors-detect
sensors

Now you can see if your poor old laptop (in my case, a Core i7–7700H) is about to become a space heater.

• ArchWiki (gold): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lm_sensors

📦 Package Management (Fedora’s Superpower)

dnf — Dandified YUM (Fedora’s Package Manager)

TL;DR: Install, update, remove, and search for software. Your apt / App Store / “download random EXE off the internet” replacement.

Common patterns:

sudo dnf install package-name
sudo dnf remove package-name
sudo dnf search keyword
sudo dnf list --installed

No adware installers, no random browser toolbars mysteriously appearing, no “Next → Next → I swear I unchecked that…” drama.

• Docs: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf/

dnf upgrade — Update Everything

TL;DR: Updates all installed packages to their latest versions.

sudo dnf upgrade

That’s it. No “cumulative update” KB numbers. No “this update failed, rolling back…” while you stare at a spinning circle.

• Docs: Covered in DNF docs: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf/

dnf-automatic — Automatic Updates (The Lazy Admin Mode)

TL;DR: Automatically checks for and installs updates on a schedule using systemd timers.

Install and enable:

sudo dnf install dnf-automatic

Enable automatic install timer:

sudo systemctl enable --now dnf-automatic-install.timer

You can tune behavior in:

sudo nano /etc/dnf/automatic.conf

You choose whether it should:

• Just notify you

• Download only

• Download and install automatically

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/dnf-automatic.8.html

max_parallel_downloads=10 — Making DNF Faster

TL;DR: Tells DNF to download up to 10 packages at once instead of doing them one-by-one.

Edit the DNF config:

sudo nano /etc/dnf/dnf.conf

In the [main] section add:

max_parallel_downloads=10

Now your updates actually use your internet connection instead of politely queueing like Brits at a bus stop.

⚙️ File Permissions & Archives

chmod +x — Make a File Executable

TL;DR: “Let this file run as a program.” Without this, your script is just a text file.

Usage:

chmod +x script.sh
./script.sh

On Windows, anything ending in .exe or .bat just runs (sometimes to your regret). On Linux, execution is a permission you grant consciously. More friction, more security.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/chmod.1p.html

unzip — Extract ZIP Files

TL;DR: Command-line Extract All… for .zip archives.

Basic usage:

unzip file.zip # Extract here
unzip file.zip -d dest/ # Extract to dest/
unzip -l file.zip # List contents

That’s it. No wizard, no “Please upgrade to Pro to extract this file” nonsense.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/unzip.1.html

🔒 Privileged Operations

sudo — Superuser Do

TL;DR: Run one command as the superuser (root). Like right-click → “Run as administrator”, but you type it.

Examples:

sudo dnf install package-name
sudo nano /etc/some-config.conf
sudo reboot

Linux assumes you’re a responsible adult and doesn’t run everything as root all day. sudo is you explicitly saying, “Yes, this change is serious and I mean it.”

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/sudo.1.html

🌐 Downloading & Networking

wget — Web Get

TL;DR: Simple command-line downloader. Great for “here’s a URL, just grab the file.”

Examples:

wget https://example.com/file.zip
wget -c https://example.com/big.iso # resume

If all you want is to download a file and move on with your life, wget is your friend.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/wget.1.html

curl — Client URL

TL;DR: The Swiss Army knife of web requests. Downloads files and talks to APIs, inspects headers, and more.

Examples:

curl https://example.com/file.zip -O
curl -I https://example.com # just headers
curl -X POST -d "foo=bar" https://api.example.com/endpoint

If wget is “download file, done”, curl is “perform HTTP kung-fu and maybe debug an API along the way.”

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/curl.1.html

🔧 System Maintenance

fwupdmgr — Firmware Update Manager

TL;DR: Updates firmware (BIOS, SSD firmware, etc.) from within your running system. No USB boot tools, no weird vendor utilities.

Typical flow:

sudo fwupdmgr refresh # refresh metadata
sudo fwupdmgr get-devices # list supported hardware
sudo fwupdmgr get-updates # see available updates
sudo fwupdmgr update # apply updates

This talks to LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service), where vendors publish signed firmware. It’s the least painful firmware update experience you’ll ever have.

• Man page: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/fwupdmgr.1.html

🛠️ Development & Version Control

git — Version Control for Everything

TL;DR: Track changes to files over time and sync them to remote repositories. Originally for code, now used for everything.

Typical usage:

git init
git clone <url>
git status
git add .
git commit -m "My message"
git push
git pull

Even if you’re not a full-time dev, git is brilliant for:

• Dotfiles

• Config backups

• Personal scripts

• Docs: https://git-scm.com/doc

🎨 Desktop Customization

gnome-tweaks — GNOME Tweaks

TL;DR: A GUI tool to customize GNOME beyond the basics. Themes, fonts, behavior, window buttons—it’s all here.

Install:

sudo dnf install gnome-tweaks

Launch:

• From the terminal: gnome-tweaks
• Or search for “Tweaks” in Activities

From here you can:

• Change themes and icons
• Manage GNOME extensions
• Tweak fonts and scaling
• Adjust window and workspace behavior

It’s like finally getting the proper “Advanced Settings” button that Windows kept hiding from you.

• Package info: https://packages.fedoraproject.org/pkgs/gnome-tweaks/gnome-tweaks/

💭 Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already made a bigger mental shift than most lifelong Windows users ever do.

The big realization for me was this:

The Windows world hides complexity behind wizards and checkboxes.
The Linux world exposes it with commands and config files—but gives you control in return.

These commands are the foundation of your new life on Fedora. As this blog series expands, this list will grow too. I’ll keep coming back to this post and adding new entries as we explore more tools together.

If there’s a command you’d like me to break down next—or you’ve seen it in a screenshot and thought “err… what does that do?”—drop a comment or ping me. 🐧🔥