The shell and the prompt

The prompt

• When the terminal is ready, it shows a prompt and waits:

student@linux:~$

• That tells you who you are (student), the computer (linux), and the folder you are in (~, your home).
• You type a command after the $, press Enter, and the computer runs it.

Where am I?

• The command pwd prints your current folder — your "you are here" on the map:

pwd

• Press the ▶ on that example to try it. (~ is short for your home folder, /home/student.)

Make the computer talk

• echo simply prints back what you type. It is the classic first command:

echo Hello from the shell

• Run it, then try the two tasks below.

Common mistakes

• Commands are case-sensitive: LS is not ls.
• The shell runs one command per line when you press Enter.