Know your computer: Mac or Windows, and what the terminal is

Lesson notes and steps

The written version of this session, with the commands and templates to copy.

Every lesson on this platform eventually asks you to open a terminal and paste something into it. If that sentence makes you nervous, this session is for you. By the end you will know which computer you are on, what a terminal actually is, and you will have typed three harmless commands into one and watched it answer you back.

Nothing here installs software or changes anything on your machine. This is the "get comfortable" session.

What you will use

• The computer you already have, Mac or Windows
• About fifteen minutes
• Nothing to install

Step 1: Which computer you are on

You likely already know, but confirm it, because the rest of this academy gives you different instructions for each.

Mac: look at the top-left corner of the screen. If you see an Apple logo, you are on a Mac.

Windows: look at the bottom-left corner of the screen. If you see a Start button (a Windows logo), you are on Windows.

You can also find the exact version, which occasionally matters:

• Mac: click the Apple logo, top-left, then About This Mac.
• Windows: click Start, type About your PC, and open it.

Menus move between versions, so if that wording does not match what you see, look for something close, some version of "About This Mac" or "About your PC" always exists.

Step 2: What the terminal actually is

A terminal is a plain text window. You type a line of text called a command, then press Enter, and the computer does what that line says. That is the entire idea.

It is the same thing as clicking an icon or choosing a menu item, just written down instead of clicked. A command is not a spell and it is not code you have to understand deeply. It is an instruction, typed instead of clicked.

Two things worth knowing before you open one:

• Nothing happens until you press Enter. Type, delete, and retype a line all you want, the computer does not act on it until you hit Enter.
• Opening a terminal cannot break your computer. The window itself is inert. Only specific commands, run on purpose, change anything, and every command in this academy is one you copy, read, and paste yourself.

Step 3: Open it

Mac: press Command + Space, type Terminal, press Enter. A window opens with a blinking cursor. Lines usually start with % or $.

Windows: click Start, type PowerShell, open Windows PowerShell (not Command Prompt). The line should start with PS C:\Users\.... If you only see C:\Users\... with no PS, you are in Command Prompt. Close it and open PowerShell.

Leave that window open for the next step.

Step 4: Three safe commands to try

Type each line below, press Enter, and read what comes back before moving to the next one. These three only look, they do not change anything.

Mac:

pwd
ls
cd ~/Desktop

Windows (PowerShell):

pwd
ls
cd $HOME\Desktop

• pwd prints your current location, the folder the terminal is "standing in" right now. It stands for "print working directory."
• ls lists what is inside that folder, the files and folders you would also see in Finder or File Explorer.
• cd ~/Desktop (or cd $HOME\Desktop on Windows) moves the terminal into your Desktop folder. cd stands for "change directory."

A folder path, in plain words, is just directions: which folder, inside which folder, inside which folder, written with slashes instead of double-clicks. ~/Desktop means "my Desktop, inside my home folder." Run pwd again after the cd and you will see the path change to prove it moved.

Step 5: Copy, paste, close, and reopen

You will paste far more commands than you type by hand, so know how to do it in a terminal specifically:

• Mac: Command + V, same as anywhere else on a Mac.
• Windows: Ctrl + V usually works in a modern PowerShell window. If it does not, right-click inside the window to paste instead. Which one works can depend on your Windows version and terminal settings.

To close a terminal window, click its red or X close button like any other window. To open a fresh one, repeat Step 3. Closing and reopening does not undo anything you already ran, and it is often the fix for a window that seems stuck.

Step 6: Two habits that keep you safe

• Read a command before you run it. Even one you copied from this academy. You do not need to understand every word, just glance at it and make sure it is going where you expect.
• If a window says "command not found," open a fresh window first. That message usually means the window was open before something got installed, not that anything is broken. A new window fixes it more often than any other troubleshooting step.

You are done when...

You opened a terminal (Terminal on Mac, Windows PowerShell on Windows), ran pwd, ls, and cd to your Desktop, and you can say out loud which operating system you are on. Nothing to install, nothing to undo, just a window that no longer feels unfamiliar.

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Template included: Members get a printable terminal cheat card: the open steps for Mac and Windows side by side, the five safe commands with what each one does, and the copy/paste keys for both. Find it in your member dashboard under Templates.

Members share their results from this session in the community. See what is included.