Introduction to the Terminal

The terminal is a text-based interface that allows you to interact with your computer using commands. It is a powerful tool that can help you navigate your computer, manage files, and run programs. In this lesson, you will learn the basics of using the terminal and some common commands that you will use throughout this course.

Many computers in the cloud do not have a graphical user interface (GUI) and can only be accessed via the terminal. Therefore, learning how to use the terminal is an essential skill for anyone working with cloud-based resources.

What is Linux

Linux is an open-source operating system that was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and has since become one of the most popular operating systems in the world. It is used on a wide range of devices, from supercomputers to smartphones, and is the foundation of many other operating systems, such as Android. It is the majority of software run on servers and is the preferred operating system for software engineering, machine learning, and bioinformatics.

Linux comes in distributions, or "distros," which are variations of the Linux operating system that are tailored to different use cases. Some popular Linux distros include Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS.

MacOS is based on Unix, which is similar to Linux, so many of the commands you learn in this course will also work on MacOS.

Windows developed separately from Unix and Linux, so Command Prompt (cmd.exe) commands are different (e.g. dir instead of ls). Throughout this course we show both variants side by side — follow the MacOS/Linux tab on Mac, and the Windows tab on Windows. When you later provision an Azure Linux VM, you will use the Linux commands on that server regardless of your laptop.