Opening a terminal on Windows, macOS and Linux

Find out what a terminal is, open one on your machine and type your first commands.

6 min · 3 questions

Normally you give your computer orders by clicking: you double-click a folder, you drag a file to the trash. The terminal does exactly the same thing, but by typing. Instead of clicking a folder, you type its name and press Enter. It is a bit like the difference between pointing at a dish on the counter and ordering it out loud: the result is identical, only the way you ask changes.

Two words come up constantly and they are easy to mix up. The terminal is the window: the black or white rectangle you type into. The shell is the program that, inside that window, reads what you write and runs it. The most common shells are bash and zsh on macOS and Linux, and PowerShell on Windows. You will also hear "console" or "command prompt": those are everyday synonyms for terminal.

Opening the terminal takes five seconds. On Windows, press the Windows key and type Terminal (or PowerShell on older versions), then confirm. On macOS, press Command + Space, type Terminal and confirm. On Linux, the Ctrl + Alt + T shortcut works on most distributions; otherwise search for "Terminal" in the applications menu.

Once the window is open, you see a line waiting for you: that is the prompt. It usually reminds you of your user name, the machine name and the folder you are in, then ends with a symbol, often $ on macOS and Linux, or > on Windows. That symbol simply means "your turn". You never type it: the computer is the one that displays it.

BASH

yoann@laptop:~$ whoami
yoann
yoann@laptop:~$ date
Wed 22 Jul 2026 15:12:04 CEST
yoann@laptop:~$ echo Hello
Hello

Three harmless commands. Type only what follows the $, then press Enter.

Four habits that save an enormous amount of time. The up arrow recalls the previous command: no need to retype everything. The Tab key auto-completes a file name you have started. Ctrl + C interrupts a command that will not finish. And clear wipes the screen when the window becomes unreadable (this command works in PowerShell too).

Never paste a command you found on the internet without understanding it. The terminal runs whatever you ask without asking for confirmation and without a recycle bin to fall back on. Be especially wary of commands that start with sudo (they run with full powers) and of any command containing rm -rf. When in doubt, ask what the command does before you run it.

Knowledge check

Make sure you remember the key points of this lesson.

What is the difference between the terminal and the shell?
- The terminal is the window, the shell is the program that runs your commands
- The terminal is for Windows, the shell is for macOS
- None, they are two words for the same thing
- The shell is the window, the terminal is the keyboard
The prompt shows yoann@laptop:~$ . What do you type to run the whoami command?
- yoann@laptop:~$ whoami
- whoami
- $whoami
A command runs endlessly and blocks the terminal. What do you do?
- Press Ctrl + C to interrupt it
- Type clear to make it go away
- Shut down the computer, it is the only way