Your First Session

Getting comfortable in the terminal

If you're new to the terminal, it can feel intimidating at first. But once you learn a few key concepts and shortcuts, you'll find it's actually faster than clicking through graphical interfaces.

Understanding the Prompt

After running the bootstrap script, you'll see a Starship prompt that looks something like:

Your Prompt 
~/projects/myapp on main via  v20.1.0
❯

This tells you:

  • ~/projects/myapp - your current directory
  • on main - the current Git branch (if in a Git repo)
  • via v20.1.0 - Node.js version (if in a Node project)
  • ❯ - where you type your commands

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

These shortcuts work in any Linux terminal. Memorise them - they'll save you countless hours.

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+C Cancel current command / stop running program
Ctrl+L Clear the screen
Tab Autocomplete command or filename
↑ / ↓ Scroll through command history
Ctrl+R Search command history
Ctrl+A Move cursor to beginning of line
Ctrl+E Move cursor to end of line
Ctrl+U Clear everything before cursor
Ctrl+K Clear everything after cursor
Ctrl+W Delete word before cursor
The most important one: Tab

Pressing Tab autocompletes commands and filenames. Start typing, press Tab, and watch it complete. If nothing happens, there's no match for what you've typed.

Command Structure

Most commands follow this pattern:

Pattern 
command [options] [arguments]

For example:

Ubuntu 
ls -la ~/Documents
  • ls - the command (list files)
  • -la - options (long format, show all files)
  • ~/Documents - argument (which directory to list)

Try It Yourself

Run these commands to get a feel for the terminal:

Ubuntu 
pwd

Print Working Directory - shows where you are

Ubuntu 
ls

List files in the current directory

Ubuntu 
whoami

Shows your username

Ubuntu 
date

Shows the current date and time

Getting Help

Most commands have built-in help:

Ubuntu 
command --help

Or for more detailed documentation:

Ubuntu 
man command

man opens the manual page. Press q to exit, Space to scroll down, and / to search.