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[MUSIC]

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Hi, I'm Jay McGavren, a web developer and
instructor at Treehouse.

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And I'm here to introduce
you to the terminal.

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The terminal is a way to control
your computer using just text.

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The graphical user interfaces, or GUIs,
you see on desktop, and mobile apps, and

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websites have their place.

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You can easily see what options
are available to you and

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click on the one you want.

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But have you ever tried to describe to
someone how to do something using a GUI,

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especially if it's buried
under three levels of menus?

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It takes a long time.

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Have you ever tried to do
a task repeatedly using a GUI,

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especially if there's no shortcut key for
it?

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It's tedious.

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The terminal lets you run commands that
are far more powerful than anything a GUI

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can do for you.

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Apps that run in the terminal use what's
called a command-line interface, or a CLI.

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It takes longer to learn how to use
a command-line interface than a GUI.

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But in the end, a command-line interface
is faster for more complicated or

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more repetitive tasks.

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This is why so many developers
prefer to use the terminal.

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Many developer tools only offer
a command-line interface,

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not a graphical user interface.

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The terminal is the only way you'll
be able to perform essential tasks,

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like managing Docker containers,
for example.

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Even when an app has both a CLI and
a GUI available, like with the Git

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version control system, most developers
prefer to use the CLI version.

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And most servers where developers deploy
apps only offer command-line access.

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So how do you access the terminal?

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Most operating systems offer some kind
of terminal-like program by default.

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On Mac and Linux machines,
it's usually simply called Terminal.

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On Windows, it's called Command Prompt,
although there are alternatives,

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like PowerShell.

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But you don't have to worry
about those details right now,

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because you have access
to Treehouse Workspaces.

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Each workspace includes a console
area that works just like a terminal.

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You can run commands and see their output.

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We'll give you directions
on how to do this shortly.

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In this course, we're going to be focusing
on the terminal as used in Linux and

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Mac operating systems.

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We'll have info near
the end of the course for

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those who need to apply some
of these concepts in Windows.

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You might wonder why we're not showing
the Windows way first, let me explain.

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The vast majority of servers where
developers deploy their software

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are running operating systems
that are compatible with Unix,

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a powerful OS developed in the 1960s.

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These compatible OSs include Linux and
Mac OS.

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All of these operating system
feature file systems and

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programs that work in much the same way.

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If you learn to use
terminal programs on Linux,

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you'll find they all work in much
the same way on Mac OS, and vice versa.

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This isn't true with Windows.

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You can still do a lot from
the Command Prompt on Windows, but

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most commands are run in a different
way and will only work on Windows.

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We're focusing on Unix-like operating
systems because they're more popular in

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servers, and because the commands you
learn will be usable on more systems.

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But like I said, we'll have info
near the end of the course for

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those who need to apply
what they learn on Windows.

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There is quite a bit of overlap,

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and you can even install tools that will
give you Unix-like commands on Windows.

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We'll also show you how to access
the terminal on Mac and Linux systems.

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By the way,

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this course is an update to our retired
Console Foundations course by Jim Hoskins.

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A big thanks goes to Jim for
his earlier work.

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Okay, are you ready?

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In the next video, we're going to
try our first terminal commands.