command_line.md

#Command line

The command line

As a skilled software developer you need to get familiar and comfortable with the command line or terminal as it is called on Ubuntu. The terminal is the big scary black screen with a blinking cursor, waiting for you to tell it what to do. Yes initialy this is a bit scary I know. But once you get more familiar with it and master a few basic commands it will be much less scary. And over time as you learn more and more command you will realise the power of the terminal.

Let's try out the terminal window, open a terminal window and let's try out a few commands.

• type pwd then press enter - what does it do?
• type ls then press enter - what does it do?
• type mkdir the_terminal then press enter - what does it do?
• type ls then press enter - to see what you just did?
• type cd the_terminal then press enter
• now try pwd & ls again
• you can use the touch command to create a new file in the folder you created.
• to create a new fille called 'my_file.txt' type touch my_file.txt
• you can now edit that file from the command line using a text editor called nano
• to edit the text file you created type nano my_file.txt in the terminal
• edit the file - add 'hello cape town' in the file and save the content of the file.
• now exit nano
• you should be back in the terminal now.

Congratulations you are now well on your way on mastering the command line.

Now hop over http://linuxsurvival.com, and complete the first Modules 1 & 2.

Complete Module 3 & 4 in your own time later, this will help you along even further to deepen your knowledge of the command line.