Motivation

A shell is an interpreter and a language used to control the computer by interpreting command-lines through an interface provided by a terminal. You may sometimes hear it called "Linux terminal" or "UNIX command line", even though we are not using Linux. Bash is one of the more widely used shells, so we will use it too.

While some people find command-line terminals intimidating or uncomfortable to use at first, it will become second-nature with practice. By starting this practice early, you are gaining confidence with a tool that nearly everyone doing computational work needs to learn, but which rarely gets taught to undergraduates outside of computer sciences.

One benefit to working with the command-line is that surprisingly complicated tasks can be performed using a single line of instruction. You may immediately find it useful for organizing and naming files and folders, or creating back-ups. Command line instructions can also be shared as reproducible steps, or even programmed using shell-script to automate and reproduce complex processes.

In research, scientists may be required to use the command line to access specialized computational resource servers to submit large processing jobs.

With time, I hope you will find the command line rewarding, if not a pleasant alternative to the visual noise of menu mazes and nondescript buttons.

Lessons

1. Getting Started with Command Line and Bash