Introduction

For the next couple of tasks it will be necessary to use the so called Terminal of the Linux operating system. Therefore, you have to get used to some basic commands that make the life easier when navigating through your directories and operating with textual data files.

The Terminal can be used to execute commands and start programs. Therefore, the appropriate command has to be typed into the terminal window, followed by hitting the Enter button. In the next sections we highlight this by:

$ command

You can interrupt a program or command that you have started in the terminal any time by pressing Ctrl+c. By appending a & character at the end of the command, the resulting process will operate in the background, not blocking the terminal for further commands. This behavior can also be achieved by pressing Ctrl+z and entering

$ bg

while your program is running. An example for starting a program in the background could look like this:

$ firefox &

If you start writing down a longer path- or a longer command-name, you can use the auto-completion feature of the terminal. Therefore write down the first letters of your path or command and press the Tab key. Doing so, the terminal will either complete your started phrase automatically if its unambigous or it will provide you with an overview of available commands or paths that start with what you've already written. You will love this feature, especially when navigating through complex directory structures. ;)