Thx, hippo, I had gotten that far. I was able to find syntax help at gitlab help forum.

fritz@laptop:~/.ssh$ ssh -T git@gitlab.com
Welcome to GitLab, @tallharry66!
fritz@laptop:~/.ssh$
[download]

But I still can't get over the hump. I try to imitate what I remember doing with github, but I'm not getting through the usual command sequence:

cd existing_repo
git remote add origin https://gitlab.com/perlmonks/betelgeuse.git
git branch -M main
git push -uf origin main
[download]

I am making progress:

fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/fritz/Documents/gitlab1/.git
+/
fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$ ll
total 36
drwxrwxr-x  4 fritz fritz 4096 Dec 19 13:07 ./
drwxr-xr-x 10 fritz fritz 4096 Dec 17 16:47 ../
-rwxrwxr-x  1 fritz fritz 1122 Dec 17 00:34 1.betelgeuse.pl*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 fritz fritz 1916 Dec 18 22:44 2.betelgeuse.pl*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 fritz fritz 1890 Dec 18 22:38 2.betelgeuse.pl.bak*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 fritz fritz 1783 Dec 18 23:57 3.betelgeuse.pl*
-rwxrwxr-x  1 fritz fritz 1737 Dec 18 23:51 3.betelgeuse.pl.bak*
drwxr-xr-x  2 fritz fritz 4096 Dec 15 21:44 conf_files/
drwxrwxr-x  7 fritz fritz 4096 Dec 19 13:07 .git/
fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$ git remote add origin https://gitlab
+.com/perlmonks/betelgeuse.git
fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$ git branch -M main
error: refname refs/heads/master not found
fatal: Branch rename failed
fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$ git push -uf origin main
error: src refspec main does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://gitlab.com/perlmonks/betel
+geuse.git'
fritz@laptop:~/Documents/gitlab1$
[download]

What am I missing now?

Other Git Resources

gitlab docs

git cheat sheet

Cheers,