Terminal Cheatsheet

A quick reference guide for common terminal commands used in ME204.

Bash ( Linux on Nuvolos)

Everyone in this course uses the same bash shell on the Nuvolos cloud environment. The commands below also work on macOS Terminal and on Linux desktops.

Navigation

Command	What it does
pwd	Print the current working directory
ls	List files and directories
cd <directory>	Change directory
cd ..	Go up one level
mkdir <directory>	Create a new directory

File Operations

Command	What it does
cp <source> <destination>	Copy a file or directory
mv <source> <destination>	Move or rename a file or directory
rm <file>	Remove a file
rm -r <directory>	Remove a directory and everything inside it

Warning

rm deletes permanently. There is no recycle bin in the terminal. Be especially careful with rm -r, which removes an entire folder tree without asking for confirmation.

Viewing and Editing Files

Command	What it does
cat <file>	Print the full contents of a file
nano <file>	Open a file in the nano text editor (create it if it does not exist)
glow <file>	Render a Markdown file with formatting (glow -p to paginate)
fx <file>	Explore a JSON file as a collapsible tree

A note on vim

vim is a powerful text editor available on almost every Unix system. It has a steep learning curve. If you open a file in vim by accident, press Esc, type :q!, and press Enter to exit without saving.

If you want to learn vim, try Vim Adventures, a game that teaches you vim commands by playing through levels. You can also run vimtutor in the terminal for a built-in interactive tutorial.

Vim Adventures

PowerShell ( Windows)

You will not need PowerShell in this course, but here are the equivalent commands for your own machine.

Navigation

Command	What it does
pwd	Print the current working directory
dir	List files and directories
cd <directory>	Change directory
cd ..	Go up one level
mkdir <directory>	Create a new directory

File Operations

Command	What it does
cp <source> <destination>	Copy a file or directory
mv <source> <destination>	Move or rename a file or directory
rm <file>	Remove a file
rm -r <directory>	Remove a directory and everything inside it
gc <file>	Get (print) the contents of a file