• Terminal Activity
• Introduction
• StartingTheTerminal
• EnteringCommands
• HelpAboutCommands
• BasicCommands
• KeyboardShortcuts
• CombiningCommands
• DirectoryStructure
• Transferring files
• Text Editors
• Credits

Terminal: Introduction

The Terminal

Most modern computers have two very different ways that you can interact with them: the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the Command Line Interface (CLI).

Most users are familiar with GUIs.  When you use your mouse to point and click on things, you are using a GUI. Many people have never used the other type of interface: the CLI. With a CLI, you use text to control functions and software on your computer.

If you really want a fast way to work on your computer to change configurations, install software, or work remotely on another computer, then the command line is often the most efficient way to do it. There is also a third way to handle such chores, using text-mode software such as Midnight Commander that provides a visual interface to the user, and then issues the appropriate commands for you behind the scenes.

A type of CLI is the Terminal. In the Sugar world we call this the Terminal Activity.

 The rest of this manual describes some of what you might want to do at the command line, and how to go about it.