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World 0: Start Here

Terminal basics

You will learn: four commands to find your way around the terminal.

The problem

Git lives in the terminal: A window where you type commands to your computer.. No mouse, no icons. Just words. How do you find your way around?

Watch

pwd asks: where am I? The answer is a path, like an address for folders. Here, you are home: /home/you.

Watch

ls asks: what’s in here? Blue names are folder (directory): A place that holds files and other folders.. The others are files.

Watch

cd means change directory. Directory is another word for folder. cd Documents walks into Documents. cd .. walks back out.

Try it

Go into Documents. Then list what’s inside.

Watch

mkdir means make directory. mkdir projects makes a new, empty folder called projects.

Try it

Make a folder called projects. Then go into it.

Predict

You are in /home/you. You type cd Music. What will pwd show?

You did it!

You can now find your way around with pwd, ls, cd and mkdir.

Go deeper (optional)

ls -a also shows hidden files. Their names start with a dot. cd ~ (or just cd) takes you home. mkdir -p makes folders inside folders in one go.