Unlike the graphical user interfaces most people use to interact with their digital systems, the terminal or command line interface, is a text-based system interface. Knowing a few of the commands enables a user to navigate the file structure, as well as create and interact with the files.
Below are a few commands that will help you get started working with the terminal. Once you know your way around, you can pick up new commands as needed.
pwd stands for print working directory and is used to display your current location in the terminal. If you get lost, you can use this to figure out where you are, and help determine how to navigate to where you want to be.
ls stands for list and is used to display a list of the files/directories present in your current directory.
cd stands for change directory and is followed by a string that represents the path to a directory you’d like to move to. Along with this, periods can be used to represent the current directory and to move back through parent directories; one period is current, two is back one level, three is two levels, etc.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of movin around, you’re going to want to create and organize files and directories.
mkdir stands for make directory and is followed by a string that represents the name of your directory.
touch is followed by the string and extension to create a file of a certain type within the current directory.