Milestone 0 Review: Mastering the Command Line

Consolidate Your Learning

A review of the foundational command-line skills for navigation, file management, and shell operations.
Author

Chuck Nelson

Published

October 28, 2025

Purpose

This document provides a comprehensive review of the foundational command-line skills you learned in Milestone 0. Through a series of active learning exercises, you will solidify your ability to navigate your computer and manage files and directories, all from within the terminal.

What You’ll Accomplish

By the end of this review session, you will have:

  • Reinforced your knowledge of the essential shell commands for file system interaction.
  • Practiced combining commands using pipes and redirection.
  • Applied your navigation skills in a practical scenario.

Active Learning and Engagement

NoteSubmitting Your Work

For all the exercises and questions in this review document, you are to record your work on a new page in your Microsoft Teams Student Notebook. This will be the official record of your review process.

Exercise 1: Command Matching Challenge

For your specific operating system (macOS/Linux or Windows), write down the single command that performs each of the following actions.

Actions:

  1. Prints the full path of your current directory.
  2. Lists the contents of the current directory.
  3. Changes the current directory to its parent.
  4. Creates a new directory named temp.
  5. Creates a new empty file named report.txt.
  6. Renames the file report.txt to final_report.txt.
  7. Moves the file final_report.txt into the temp directory.
  8. Displays the contents of the final_report.txt file.
  9. Deletes the file final_report.txt.
  10. Deletes the empty directory temp.

Exercise 2: Navigate the Maze

Imagine your computer has the following directory structure. Starting from your home directory (~), write the sequence of commands needed to perform all the steps below.

/ (root)
└── Users/
    └── shared/
        └── project_b/
            ├── data/
            └── docs/

Your Task:

  1. Navigate from your home directory to the docs folder inside project_b using relative paths (hint: you will need to use .. multiple times).
  2. From inside docs, create a new file named notes.md.
  3. Move notes.md up into the project_b directory.
  4. Navigate from your current location (docs) back to your home directory (~) using a single command.

Exercise 3: Peer Instruction

This exercise is for discussion. Find a partner or a small group and choose one of the topics below. Each person should take a turn explaining their topic to the others.

Explain the difference between an absolute path and a relative path.

  • Give an example of an absolute path to a common folder on your computer (like Desktop).
  • Give an example of a relative path from your home directory to that same folder.

Explain the meaning of the three special directory shortcuts.

  • ~ (tilde)
  • . (single dot)
  • .. (double dot)

Explain the difference between the pipe | operator and the output redirection > operator.

  • Give an example of when you would use a pipe.
  • Give an example of when you would use redirection.

Review Questions

Answer the following questions in your Microsoft Teams Student Notebook.

  1. What command would you use to see the contents of a directory in a detailed, long format on macOS or Linux?

  2. What is the key difference between the > and >> redirection operators?

  3. If you are in a directory named /Users/yourname/project/src and you run the command cd .., what will your new present working directory be?

  4. What is the most important thing to remember before using the rm or del command?

Reflect and Review

ImportantMilestone Reflection

Reflect on your journey through Milestone 0. In your Microsoft Teams Student Notebook, answer the following:

  • Connect: Before this milestone, what was your comfort level with using a computer without a graphical interface? How has that changed?
  • Challenge: What was the most confusing or challenging concept for you in this milestone (e.g., paths, pipes, remembering the commands)?
  • Confidence: Describe one task you can now do from the command line that you couldn’t do before.
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