What is the terminal?
The terminal (also called the command line or shell) is a text-based window where you type commands and the computer executes them. Everything in this guide is typed into a terminal window. This chapter shows you how to open one in the most common desktop environments.
Every desktop environment ships with at least one terminal emulator. The keyboard shortcuts below are the defaults as configured by the distribution.
GNOME (Ubuntu, Fedora)
Press the Super key (the Windows key), type Terminal, then press Enter.
On Ubuntu, the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T opens the default terminal (Ptyxis). This is bound by default in Ubuntu’s settings.
On Fedora, Ctrl+Alt+T is not bound to a terminal by default — use the Super key search instead, or assign the shortcut yourself in Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts.
KDE Plasma (Kubuntu, Fedora KDE)
The terminal emulator is Konsole.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+T, or
- Open the Application Launcher (Super key) and type
Konsole.
Xfce (Xubuntu)
The terminal emulator is xfce4-terminal.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+T (or Super+T), or
- Open the application menu and choose Terminal.
On other Xfce-based distros (such as the Fedora Xfce spin), the keyboard shortcuts are not guaranteed — use the application menu instead.
Cinnamon (Linux Mint)
- Press Ctrl+Alt+T, or
- Open the Menu and type
Terminal.
Right-click in a file manager
Many file managers offer an “Open in Terminal” option in their right-click context menu. If your file manager does not show it, the keyboard shortcuts above always work instead.
What you should see
After opening the terminal you get a prompt — a line where you type commands:
user@host:~$
This guide uses the $ prompt in examples. You are now ready for
Chapter 1.
This chapter is the only GUI material in the guide. Everything else is strictly command-line.