Exercise 0.0: Opening a Terminal

Your First Step into the Command Line

Author

Chuck Nelson

Published

October 28, 2025

Purpose

Every journey begins with a single step. For a programmer, one of the first and most important steps is opening the command-line interface (CLI). This tool, often called the terminal, is where you will run commands, manage files, and control the powerful development tools you will use throughout this course. This exercise will guide you through finding and opening the terminal on your specific operating system.

What You’ll Accomplish

By the end of this exercise, you will have successfully:

  • Identified and opened the correct terminal application for your operating system.
  • Understood the difference between a terminal and a shell.
  • Run your very first command and seen its output.

What are Terminals and Shells?

It’s helpful to know two key terms:

  • A Terminal is the program you open to get a command-line window. It’s a graphical application that lets you access the shell.
  • A Shell is the program inside the terminal that interprets your commands and interacts with the operating system. Common shells are Bash, Zsh, PowerShell, and CMD.

Think of the terminal as the window and the shell as the conversation you have with the computer through that window.

Your Task: Open Your Terminal

Follow the instructions for your operating system below.

On modern Windows, the best tool is the Windows Terminal, which can run several different shells. We will primarily use PowerShell.

  1. Click the Start button (or press the Windows key).
  2. Type Terminal.
  3. Click on the Windows Terminal application to open it.
  4. If the tab that opens says “Command Prompt” or “CMD”, click the little down-arrow v in the tab bar and select PowerShell from the dropdown menu.

Opening Windows Terminal

On macOS, the terminal application is simply called Terminal.

  1. Press Cmd + Spacebar to open Spotlight Search.
  2. Type Terminal.
  3. Press Enter to open the Terminal application.

Alternatively, you can find it in Applications > Utilities > Terminal.app.

Opening Terminal on macOS

Most Linux distributions with a graphical user interface (GUI) have a terminal application readily available.

  1. Press the Super key (it usually has a Windows logo or is labeled “Start”).
  2. Type Terminal.
  3. Click on the Terminal icon to launch it.

Opening Terminal on Ubuntu Linux

Verification: Your First Command

Now that you have a terminal open with a blinking cursor, it’s time to run your first command. This command simply tells the shell to print back whatever you type after it.

Type the following command and press Enter:

echo "Hello, Command Line!"

You should see the text Hello, Command Line! printed on the next line. If you see this, you have successfully used the shell!

Reflect and Review

ImportantReflection

This was your first step. In your Microsoft Teams Student Notebook, on a new page for Milestone 0, answer the following:

  • Which operating system are you using?
  • Was it easy or difficult to find and open the terminal?
  • In your own words, what is the difference between a terminal and a shell?
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