Open Source Comes to Campus/UMD/Laptop setup/Linux command line

There are three commands that we'll be using at a command prompt to navigate the filesystem on your computer:

lists the contents of a directory.

gives the full directory path to your current directory.

moves you into a new directory (it stands for "change directory").

Let's practice using these commands.

Open a command prompt:
You can find the Terminal application at Applications/Accessories/Terminal, or it may already be on your menu bar.

Practice using,, and
Before you practice these commands, let's make sure you are really at a terminal prompt. Recall that a terminal prompt will look like  and a Python prompt will look like. Make sure you are at a terminal prompt and not a Python prompt; if you are at a Python prompt, you can type  on a line by itself and then hit enter to exit Python and return to a terminal prompt. Great!

Type each of these commands and hit enter:

ls This lists all the files in your home directory.

pwd This displays the full directory path to your current directory, which is your home directory.

cd / This will change you into the  root directory.

ls This lists the contents of the  root directory.

cd home This will change you into the  subdirectory of the   root directory.

ls You should see a list of all the files in, including the directory for your username -- your home directory.

pwd This displays the full directory path to your current directory,.

cd .. means "parent directory", so this command moved you up to the parent directory. You were in, so now you are in  , the root directory.

ls This lists the contents of the root directory, confirming where you are.


 * You can use Tab to auto-complete directory and file names. So from inside the root directory, if you type  and hit Tab, the command prompt will auto-complete the directory name as much as it can.
 * The command prompt maintains a command history. You can use the up arrow to cycle through old commands.

Success!
You've practiced using,  , and   to navigate your computer's filesystem from the command prompt.

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