Trying out Command Line

Now it’s your turn to try out the command line. Open a terminal window, either by clicking on the terminal icon on the Task Bar, from the main menu (under Accessories), or by pressing Ctrl-Alt-T.

Take a look around

What commands can you remember from the previous step? Try moving around the file system and looking at the files and directories (folders).

Useful commands

Try taking more screenshots and organising them using these useful commands:

• mkdir [name] makes a new directory (folder). Try mkdir Screenshots to create a new folder called Screenshots.

• cp [from][to] makes a copy of a file with a new name. Try cp screenshot-file.png my-custom-desktop.png. You’ll need to use the name of a screenshot file on your computer instead of ‘screenshot-file.png’.

• mv [from][to] renames a file or moves it to a directory. For example, mv screenshot-file.png my-custom-desktop.png renames your file; mv my-custom-desktop.png Screenshots moves it into the Screenshots directory.

• rm [file] removes a file. Be careful, it doesn’t go to the Wastebasket but is deleted instantly, so you won’t be able to get it back.

Try some other commands

Here are some other commands that you can try: cal, date, pinout. What do they do?

More common commands

You can find a list of commonly used commands in the Linux Commands Documentation.

Find another command

Think of a task you’d like to be able to do on your Raspberry Pi. Try to find out how to do it from the command line and share it in the comments.

If you can’t think of anything, here are a few ideas you can choose from:

• Take a screenshot of a specific window

• Find out the IP address of your Raspberry Pi

• Find out how much file space is left on your SD card (clue: check the Linux Commands Documentation).