Getting started with the terminal
The terminal can look intimidating at first, but it’s simply a way to tell your computer what to do using text commands instead of a mouse.
If something doesn’t work, the terminal will usually just show an error message — it won’t “break” anything.
Open Terminal
- Press
Ctrl+Alt+T - Or open the app menu and search for Terminal
Tab completion (this is the best tip)
Pressing Tab auto‑completes commands and filenames.
Example:
do
Press Tab and you’ll see suggestions (for example done, dosfsck, domainname, do-release-upgrade).
If there’s only one match, it completes it automatically.
Where am I? What’s in this folder?
Show your current folder:
pwd
List files and folders:
ls
Include hidden files:
ls -a
Change to another folder:
cd Desktop
Go up one level:
cd ..
Admin commands (sudo)
Some tasks need administrator permissions. Put sudo at the start of the command.
Update your system (Ubuntu/Debian):
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt autoremove
View or edit a file
View a file:
cat filename
Edit a file:
nano filename
Exit the terminal at any time with:
exit
Feb 26, 2026