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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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New Linux user here. Is this really how I'm supposed to install apps on Linux? (feddit.uk)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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https://mullvad.net/en/help/install-mullvad-app-linux

Trying to install VPN and these are the instructions Mullvad is giving me. This is ridiculous. There must be a more simple way. I know how to follow the instructions but I have no idea what I'm doing here. Can't I just download a file and install it? I'm on Ubuntu.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Just as an addendum to your answer. In the command writing to mullvad.list the | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mullvad.list is using two helpful linux utilities to modify the command. The first is the | which is called a pipe and connects the text output of one program to the text input of another. The pipe is connecting the output of echo which simply prints a string, in this case composed of the outputs of several other commands to the program tee. Tee which is given admin privileges by the sudo takes an input stream and splits it between two files. In this case those are mullvad.list and since no other was provided stdout the output pipeline of the terminal running the command.

EDIT:

In the interest of further completeness. Another utility used in those commands is the command substitution operator of sh. So when the terminal is interpretting text $(some command) gets substituted out for the text output by the command in the parentheses. It is another common way of connecting commands on the shell to allow for more flexible and powerful commands.