Navigating the Command Line

Navigating the Command Line

Before you can use commands on the command line you need to know how to even get there and then it helps to know some keyboard shortcuts for basic editing.

When you are logged in the graphical environment on a Linux desktop you can open a Terminal window. There are many different versions of it: gnome-terminal, Konsole, rxvt, lxterminal, xterm, st, ... and many more. Basically all do the same: They present you with a terminal window where you text-characters can be displayed and you can enter text.

There are tools where you can connect to remote computer via network and get a text console there.

On a naked Linux system without a graphical environment you are presented with a login prompt and when you log in with username and password you can enter commands there. Linux gives you multiple virtual text consoles there: You can switch between them by Pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 to Ctrl-Alt-F10. (Ctrl is "Strg" on German Keyboard). (This will often also work when you have a graphical environment.)