#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL FOR FREE#
#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL INSTALL#
#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL SOFTWARE#
#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL FREE#
#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL WINDOWS#

#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL FREE#

The first section of that tutorial (“Manipulating Files and Directories”) is free (though you do have to create an account) and will give you a pretty good introduction.

#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL SOFTWARE#

If you would prefer a DataCamp alternative, you can try the first three modules of the Software Carpentry course on this topic, though I don’t think it’s quite as good. Now that you have a sense of what the command line is about, I recommend you try out this tutorial (“Introduction to Shell for Data Science”) to get some experience working with it (the command line is used enough that people have already created great tutorials - I won’t insult their work by trying to re-create them). But what if you want to rename hundreds? The command line gives you the ability to write little scripts to do this kind of work for you.

Renaming a file by clicking on it, deleting the name, typing in a new name, and hitting return is great if you only need to rename one file. Sometimes you want to do something OVER AND OVER. If your work ever requires you to use a remote server with, say, more computing power, those systems probably won’t offer a graphical user interface.

You won’t always have a graphical interface.

Ĭonnect to research servers to work with big computer clusters for advanced data analysis.

#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL INSTALL#

Install and manage packages in many programming languages like Python and Julia

For example, you basically have to use the command line to: So, by learning to use the command line, you gain access to lots of powerful tools that would otherwise be unavailable.

#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL FOR FREE#

This is especially true for free and open-source software.

#COMMAND LINE FOR MAC TUTORIAL WINDOWS#

It turns out that it takes a lot of work to make a program that has pretty icons and windows that pop up, so lots of people make tools but don’t bother to make pretty graphical interfaces. More tools are available through the command line than through graphical user interface. There are three main reasons to learn to use the command line. ĭOS and CMD: Window’s version of bash and shell.Terminal: sometimes used colloquially to refer to any system that lets you talk to your computer via text, but also the name Apple uses when you run bash. Thankfully, we can install bash on Windows! So, IF YOU ARE USING WINDOWS, GO TO THIS PAGE FOR DIRECTIONS ON MAKING BASH AVAILABLE ON WINDOWS! before starting any exercises.īash and shell: two (almost identical) programs for talking to your computer via text. But to make life confusing, these will also often be referred to as “the terminal” or “command line”. By default, Windows does not use bash, but instead one of several Windows-specific tools (like CMD or PowerShell) to allow this kind of text-based interaction with your operating system. The one place this equivalence breaks down is on Windows. And if you want to work directly with a computer in the cloud, you will almost never get to use a pretty graphical user interface, so you’ll have to use a terminal, making bash a great choice to learn on. That’s important, because almost all computers in the cloud run Linux (including both companies like Amazon Web Services and university research clusters).

We’re using bash because it’s the default terminal program on nearly all Macs and Linux computers (the operating systems of Mac and Linux computers are very similar, and are often just referred to as POSIX computers). But for all intents and purposes, the terms bash, command line, Terminal, and shell are basically interchangeable on a Mac or Linux computer. Also, bash is based on a program called shell, so you may also hear the term shell used to describe the tool we’ll be using today. But if you’re working on a Mac, you’d never know you were using bash because Apple calls bash Terminal. In this tutorial, the specific program we will be using is called bash. Terminology ¶īefore we get into the details of the terminal, though, a note on terminology: there are lots of names that float around that basically mean the same thing, including terminal, shell, command line, and bash. Just as you can use your mouse to open folders, move and rename files, and launch programs, so too can you use the terminal to ask your operating system to do the same things. The command line is a tool for talking to your operating system (e.g., macOS, Windows, etc.) using text instead of by moving around a mouse and clicking on things. It’s probably good to start by answering the question: What is the command line?

Command Line, Basics Command Line, Basics Contents.

Command line for mac tutorial