Why Google Cloud Shell?

Google Cloud Shell features, especially the tutorials, will facilitate your introduction to Unix, Conda, Docker, GIT, and Datalad.
Free: It's free (and, if you sign up through your University Google account, they'll never ask for your credit card).
Harmless: You can explore without fearing that you might ruin your own dataset or machine!
Persistent: Unlike other free Unix command-line tools, Google provides a persistent 5 GB Home directory. This means you can set up your configuration and upload files and they will all be there tomorrow or a month from now. This is really helpful as you experiment with the command line and try to get more comfortable.

Once you have mastered each tool (e.g., Unix, Docker, GIT etc.) in the Google Cloud Shell environment, you should be able to extend your knowledge to the High Performance Computing cluster, and to your personal computer (especially Mac or Linux). However, with some work, even Windows PCs can support the bash shell, command line, Docker, and Conda.

Timeout

The virtual machine instance that backs your Cloud Shell session isn't permanently allocated to a Cloud Shell session and terminates if the session is inactive for 20 minutes. If you see very frequent timeouts, something is wrong: try clearing your browser cache, using a different browser, or trying a different computer.

Unix 3: Google Cloud Shell