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

The filesystem on your computer is like a tree made up of directories and files. The filesystem has a root directory called /, and everything on your computer lives in subdirectories of this root directory.

We often navigate the filesystem graphically by clicking on graphical folders. We can do the exact same navigation from the command line.

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

• ls
• pwd
• cd

ls lists the contents of a directory.
pwd gives the full directory path to your current directory.
cd 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 through Spotlight, or navigate to Applications/Utilities/Terminal.

Practice using ls, pwd, and cd

(that's an l the letter, not the number 1)

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 Users

This will change you into the Users subdirectory of the / root directory.

ls

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

pwd

This displays the full directory path to your current directory, /Users.

cd ..

.. means "parent directory", so this command moved you up to the parent directory. You were in /Users, 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 cd U 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 ls, pwd, and cd to navigate your computer's filesystem from the command prompt.

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