Yes that is the only way. It's not over your head, you just need to take some time to learn it. It is a very valuable skill and its not like you need to be a dev to work with bash. Get a tails distro on a USB drive and then play around. What is the worst that can happen while you learn? Break it? If you somehow manage to do something that really screws up the OS, the just format the drive and do it all over again. Do not mistake lack of knowledge for apathy.