I'm new linux and wondering if there are any tutorials on how to use the utility linux DD?

There's a rather extensive thread here on LQ that deals with the in and outs of the dd command

- Learn The DD Command Revised

All them tend to start out with a warning of how easy it is to wreck your data. If you are new to linux, then be careful with that command.

In it's simplest form there are two options if = INPUT and of= OUTPUT e.g.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/somefile

This would create an empty file full of zeroes and keep writing to it until you cancel. Just remember however you use DD, there is never any user confirmation so be very careful when typing paths becuase if you accidently put of=/ somefile instead of =/somefile you could end up trashing your filesystem by writing zeroes over it.

You can also specify byte sizes and the number of counts etc. Type "man dd" and you should have lots of syntax etc in there.