Across this book you will widely use command-line tool, if you are on a Mac or on a Linux machine the commands you can type in the tool are almost the same. On Mac the command-line tool is named Terminal and you can find it by navigating to Applications | Utilities | Terminal. On Linux you refer again to the command-line tool with the word "Terminal" but its location varies accordingly to the Linux distribution you are using. In Gnome, the classic desktop environment for Ubuntu 11.04, you can find the Terminal by navigating to Applications | Accessories | Terminal. In Xfce you can find the Terminal by navigating to Applications | System | Terminal.
On a Windows machine the command-line tool is named MS-DOS prompt and can be opened by typing cmd
and pressing Enter, in the start menu. The commands syntax is different from the Mac or Linux one, the most relevant differences are summarized in the following table:
Command |
Terminal |
MS-DOS prompt |
---|---|---|
Copy Files |
cp |
copy |
Edit text files |
vi |
edit |
Compare files |
diff |
fc |
Browse files |
ls |
dir |
Clear screen |
clear |
cls |
Create a symbolic link |
ln |
mklink |