The Terminal
One of the reasons GNOME was selected as the default environment for new users is that it looks very similar to Windows and Mac OS, and is therefore easy to get started with. However, one of the most important (and useful) differences between Linux and some other operating systems is the extent to which you can go "behind" the graphics and work more closely with what the computer is actually doing. One of the ways of doing this is through the use of a "shell," or "terminal emulator."
To open a Terminal window:
- If you have an icon on your dock called "Terminal", double-click it.
- If not, click on the "Applications" menu at the top of the screen, and then "Accessories", "Terminal".
The World's Shortest History of the Terminal™
In the good old days, when computers did not have color graphics and mice, programmers interacted with the computers using just text that was entered in and spit back out by a component called the "terminal." Today's computers aren't restricted to only using text, and text-input screens are called "terminal emulators" since they're really only mimicking the behavior of the old terminals.
An old mechanical teletype terminal.
These windows are also called "shells," since they wrap around the innermost part of the computer operating system and provide a way for you to communicate with it. There are several different shells available for use with the terminal emulators, but they pretty much all work the same way: by providing a way for you to type commands in and get text results back.
A GNOME terminal emulator, showing basic command input and output. Don't worry if you don't understand any of the text.
How to use a Terminal
So what good is a shell? Here's a very short selection of some of the things you can use a shell for:
- Launch programs
- Create, delete, move, copy files (etc.)
- Write and compile code (hint: we'll be doing more of this!)
