Using the Terminal

The terminal is a powerful tool for interacting with your operating system. Whether you’re on Linux, macOS, or Windows, learning the basic commands will help you better manage your environment and accomplish tasks more easily.

In this guide, I present the most useful terminal commands along with examples. Feel free to follow the same steps on your side, adapting paths and options according to your system.

Terminal Commands#

Let’s start by opening a terminal window (PowerShell or Command Prompt (cmd) on Windows). On Linux distributions (and macOS), you can often open it with the “Ctrl + Alt + T” shortcut.

pwd#

The pwd command displays the current directory from the root.

mowibox@chroma:~$ pwd
/home/mowibox

Here, you can see that I’m in the /home/mowibox folder.

ls#

The ls command lists the contents of the current directory.

mowibox@chroma:~$ ls
Desktop    Downloads  Pictures  Templates
Documents  Music      Public    Videos

In this example, you see several folders: Desktop, Downloads, etc.

On Windows, the output looks more like this:

mowibox@chroma:~$ ls
PS C:\Users\Mowibox> ls

    Directory: C:\Users\Mowibox

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-r---        06/25/2025     15:57              Desktop
d-r---        03/14/2025     23:40              Documents
d-r---        06/27/2025     20:26              Downloads
d-r---        03/04/2025     21:21              Music
d-r---        06/27/2025     20:26              Pictures
d-r---        03/12/2025     15:53              Videos

For this tutorial, we’ll illustrate commands in a Linux terminal, so if you’re on Windows, don’t be surprised by the formatting: the commands work the same way.

You can also add the name of a directory after the command to view its contents. Let’s try with the Documents folder:

mowibox@chroma:~$ ls Documents/
Folder_1  file.txt

You see the folder Folder_1 and the text file file.txt. And this addition works for many commands we’ll see later!

cd#

The cd command changes the current directory. Let’s enter the Documents folder:

mowibox@chroma:~$ cd Documents/
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$

On each new prompt, the path ~ has become ~/Documents, confirming you’re in the right place. You can list the folder contents again with ls:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  file.txt

You see the same contents as before.

To go back up one level, use .. with cd:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ cd ..
mowibox@chroma:~$

This returns you to the folder above Documents.

mkdir#

The mkdir Folder command creates the folder Folder in the current location.

Let’s create Folder_2 in Documents:

mowibox@chroma:~$ cd Documents/
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mkdir Folder_2
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  Folder_2  file.txt

You can also create multiple folders at once. For example, Folder_3 and Folder_4:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mkdir Folder_3 Folder_4
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_3  Folder_4  file.txt

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mkdir Folder 5
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
5  Folder  Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_3  Folder_4  file.txt

It created folders 5 and Folder. That’s why we use hyphens (’-’) or underscores (’_’) instead of spaces.

rmdir#

Now we have unwanted folders—let’s remove them!

The rmdir command deletes an empty directory. Let’s remove the extra ones:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
5  Folder  Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_3  Folder_4  file.txt
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ rmdir 5 Folder Folder_3
Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_4  file.txt

rm#

The rm filename.ext command removes the file filename.ext. Let’s test it—first create a file.

On Linux, you can use touch to create a file (we’ll cover that later). For now, let’s assume goodbye.txt exists and that it’s nastily deleted (it’s only goodbye):

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_4  file.txt  goodbye.txt
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ rm goodbye.txt
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_4  file.txt

mv#

The mv command moves or renames a file/folder. Examples:

• mv Folder_4/ Folder_3 renames Folder_4 to Folder_3 (since Folder_3 did not exist in the current directory).

  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_4  file.txt
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mv Folder_4/ Folder_3
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_3 file.txt

• mv Folder_3/ Folder_1/ moves Folder_3 into Folder_1 (since Folder_1 already exists in the current directory).

  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  Folder_2  Folder_3  file.txt
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mv Folder_3/ Folder_1
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  Folder_2  file.txt
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls Folder_1/
  Folder_3

• mv Folder_2/ Folder_1/Folder_4 moves and renames Folder_2 to Folder_4 inside Folder_1 (since Folder_4 did not exist inside Folder_1).

  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  Folder_2  file.txt
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ mv Folder_2/ Folder_1/Folder_4
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
  Folder_1  file.txt
  mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls Folder_1/
  Folder_3  Folder_4

cp#

The cp command copies a file or folder. As with mv, there are several ways to use it:

• cp file.txt file_copy.txt creates a copy in the same directory.
• cp file.txt Folder_1/file_copy.txt copies into Folder_1 with a new name. Or use cp file.txt Folder_1/ to keep the original name for the copy.
• cp -r Folder_1/ Folder_copy/ recursively copies the folder.

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  file.txt
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls Folder_1/
Folder_3  Folder_4
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ cp -r Folder_1/ Folder_copy/
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls
Folder_1  Folder_copy  file.txt
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls Folder_copy/
Folder_3  Folder_4

Access Permissions#

Each file/folder has permissions determining who can read, write, or execute it. Permissions apply to:

• user: file owner
• group: members of the file’s group
• other: everyone else

Three permission types:

• Read (r): view contents
• Write (w): modify
• Execute (x): run a program or enter a folder

On Linux, add -l to ls to view file and directory permissions:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ ls -l
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 2 mowibox mowibox 4096 Jun 30 10:19 Folder_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 mowibox mowibox    0 Jun 30 10:19 file.txt

In :

• Folder_1/, drwxrwxr-x means that:

  • d: it’s a folder.
  • rwx: the owner has all rights (read, write, execute).
  • rwx: the group also has all rights.
  • r-x: other users can read and enter the folder, but not modify it.

• file.txt, -rw-rw-r-- means that :

  • -: It’s a file.
  • rw-: the owner can read and modify the file (a text file cannot be run as a program, hence the absence of the x).
  • rw-: the group can also read and modify.
  • r--: other users can only read the file.

Linux‑only Commands#

The next commands are exclusive to Linux. Windows users can skip to the summary table.

touch#

The touch command creates an empty file. It can have any desired extension: text file (.txt), Python (.py), Markdown (.md)…

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ touch file_2.txt

cat#

The cat command is used to display the contents of a file in the terminal. Let’s take a look at the contents of the file.txt file, which has been waiting for its moment of glory since the beginning of this tutorial:

Hello Chroma!

I love typing commands in a terminal!

We can use cat to display its contents:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ cat file.txt
Hello Chroma!

I love typing commands in a terminal!

which#

The which command is used to display the path of an installed program. For example, let’s find out where the python3 program is located:

mowibox@chroma:~$ which python3
/usr/bin/python3

find#

The find command is used to search for files/folders in the tree.

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ find . -name "file.txt"
./file.txt

Here we search the current directory (.) for all files called exactly file.txt.

grep#

The grep command is used to search for a word or pattern in a file. Let’s search for the term “Chroma” in the previous file:

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ grep "Chroma" file.txt
Hello Chroma!

The system displays the line of interest and highlights the word found.

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ grep -irn "chRoMA!"
file.txt:1:Hello Chroma!

chmod#

The chmod command is used to modify the access rights of a file or folder.

To write it, there are two notations :

Symbolic notation#

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod u+x file.txt  # add execute for owner
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod g-w file.txt  # remove write for group
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod o+r file.txt  # add read for others

Numeric notation#

mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod 744 file.txt  # owner=rwx, group=r--, other=r--
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod 655 file.txt  # owner=rw-, group=r-x, other=r-x
mowibox@chroma:~/Documents$ chmod 520 file.txt  # owner=r-x, group=-w-, other=---

Summary Table of Commands#

This section acts as a cheat sheet, summarizing all the commands we’ve just seen in this tutorial. Hope you’ll find it useful!

Credits#

• Writer: Ousmane THIONGANE
• Latest update: Juillet 2025
• Reviewer: