In the last post, Introduction to OS X command line, we looked how to get an xterm and a full-screen console. In this post we are going to get our hands dirty with a few quick and easy commands

Open your terminal or login to a real console (link to last post). We are going to try out some basic commands. For each command below, type the command and then press enter.

Simple Navigation

Start with: ls

You will now see your user files. Now Type: cd Desktop

And then again type: ls

You will now see the files that you left on your Desktop (which to Bash is a folder like any other). Next type: cd .. which will take you back up a level.

And again: ls

You know should be able to navigate pretty well!

Ping - Pong

Ping is a very simple but affective tool to check whether you can connect to a remote computer. With sonar, you throw a sound at something, and if it bounces back then you know it is there. You can ping an IP address (such as 66.249.93.104) or a domain name (such google.com) .

Type:

ping www.google.com

On normal GNU/Linux/BSD machines, Control and C is the quit or cancel command. If you are using the full console then you can use Control+C to stop pinging Google and quit the ping application . If you are using the xterm, you will need to use Command (the button with an Apple on) and C to quit ping. In this blog, where I say that a keyboard command is Control and something, it may be the Command key on a Mac, you should be able to figure it out pretty easily though.

Text Editors

Now Mac OS X comes with a number of the best command-line text editors, although they are not the latest versions by anny means. Later in this series we will examine ways of getting command-line applications. For now, the Apple packaged versions will do just fine.

Emacs

For the ride of your life, type

emacs

Emacs is the 'one true editor'. If you start typing and playing with it you will understand pretty quickly. Elsewhere in this blog there is more help using command-line text editors.

Below 'C-', that is the letter C followed by a hyphen, means that you type them at the same time. There is no real difference in this blog if I write C-x or C+X.

Type C-h followed by C-p for a very important work by Richard Stallman which is required reading for all computer users.

Type C-h followed by C-? for more ways to get help.

Type C-x followed by C-c to quit emacs.

Vi / Vim

Vi is a text editor like Emacs but it has two modes: input mode and command mode (sometimes called 'beep mode'). To go between modes hit the Escape key (esc), you have to hit it as fast as you can (as if you are playing whack-a-mole).

There is more written about Vi and Vim elsewhere on this blog. All you need to know now is to type vi to open it, have a play and then type :q to close it. If it does not close then you are currently in insert mode, press esc then :q to exit vim.

More Fun

You can read the rest of the blog, everything should be accessible in one form or another. In the next few posts we will look at extending the Mac OS X command-line by examining methods of obtaining more utilities and programs.