The Terminal

The terminal is the black window where you type commands. People who could use a mouse choose the terminal because typing is precise: one command can rename 500 files, and you can save that command and run it again tomorrow.

The pieces

Piece	What it is
Terminal (emulator)	The window itself — it just displays text and sends your keystrokes
Shell	The program inside the window that reads your commands (usually bash)
Prompt	The bit of text waiting for input, like paul@laptop:~$

Don't confuse the terminal with the shell. The terminal is the window; the shell is the conversation partner. You can swap shells without changing terminals.

Reading the prompt

paul@laptop:~$

• paul — who you're logged in as
• laptop — which machine this is
• ~ — where you are right now (~ means your home directory)
• $ — "I'm ready for a command" (a # here means you're root — the superuser — be extra careful)

Your first commands

Type these exactly, pressing Enter after each:

whoami

Check: It prints your username — the same name as the start of your prompt.

pwd

pwd = "print working directory." It answers "where am I?"

Check: It prints something like /home/paul. That's your home directory — your personal space on the machine.

date

Check: It prints the current date and time. Congratulations, you just asked the computer a question and got an answer.

When a command runs long

• Ctrl+C — stop the current command (the universal "never mind")
• Ctrl+D — close the terminal / log out (sends "end of input")
• Up arrow — bring back the last command so you can edit and re-run it

Memorize Ctrl+C now. You'll need it exactly when you're flustered, which is when you're least likely to remember something you only read once.

Case matters

Documents and documents are different things. Linux filenames are case-sensitive, unlike Windows. LS is not a command; ls is.

Next: Files and Directories