Introduction to the Unix Shell

This workshop will introduce the Unix shell, a powerful way to communicate with your computer more directly through a command line interface. There are many ways to interact with a computer. Most of the time we click on things and select options with a cursor through a graphical user interface (GUI). A command line is exactly what it sounds like, a way of writing commands to your computer line by line and is incredibly powerful.

In this workshop we will show you how to navigate through different parts of your system and introduce some of the most useful commands to be aware of. No previous experience with the command line is required. This workshop is for beginners.

Pre-workshop setup: Please have a laptop ready for this workshop. We will be using the Unix shell for most of the workshop. If you have a Mac or a Linux laptop you don’t need to install or enable anything. If you are using a Windows 10 PC you will need to turn on the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” setting as per these instructions.

This workshop is part of the Core Skills series. If you have any questions, concerns, or accessibility needs please email [email protected]. To keep up-to-date with all of the workshops, consults, and events, subscribe to the UBC Library Research Commons monthly newsletter.