Summary

A quick, one-lesson introduction to the Unix-style command-line environment.

This course is intended to get you up to speed on the shell — using a terminal, managing files and directories, and running command-line programs.

Expected Learning

Although the Unix shell has an "old school" feel, it remains an important skill, due to the incredible popularity of Unix-like systems: The majority of web servers in the world today run on Linux, and the same bash command line is shipped with every Mac computer.

Using the shell is a prerequisite for many other developer skills including version control (such as git) and deployment.

Syllabus

Starting out

Opening a terminal

Your first command (echo)

Working with directories

Navigating directories (ls, cd, ..)

Current working directory (pwd)

Parameters and options (ls -l)

Organizing your files (mkdir, mv)

Working with files

Downloading (curl)

Viewing files (cat, less)

Removing things (rm, rmdir)

Searching and pipes (grep, wc)

Customizing the shell

Shell and environment variables

Startup files (.bash_profile)

Aliases

Required Knowledge

This is a course for beginners to the shell environment.

To take this course, you'll need a current Mac, Windows, or Linux computer.

You should be familiar with elementary programming concepts such as "statement", "variable", "argument to a function", and "file". No particular programming language is required, though.