The bash terminal

Many tasks in the following weeks will need to be performed on the terminal (or 'command line').

If you use Mac OS X: In order to keep the terminal in the dock also after you close it, right click on the symbol and select 'Options' → 'keep in dock'.

Let's start with a list of useful commands – just type them into the command line and confirm with RETURN.

ls             # get list of files in the current directory
mkdir molsim   # make directory 'molsim'
cd molsim      # change into directory 'molsim'
cd ..          # go up one directory
pwd            # print path to the current working directory
open .         # opens current directory in Finder (Mac OS X)

Now it is time to copy some files from the teacher account.

cd                                    # change into your home directory
cp ~student10/.bashrc .               # copy course-specific system settings
cd intro                              # change into directory 'intro'

After this, please close and reopen your terminal in order to activate the course-specific settings you copied.

We are now ready to get started. Below you find some additional commands that will come in handy later.

nano myfile     # opens 'myfile' in nano (an 'easy' command line text editor)
vim myfile      # opens 'myfile' in vim (less intuitive but more powerful command line text editor)

(on Mac OS X): In order to take a screen shot, hit CMD+ SHIFT + 4.