Workshop Schedule: Introduction to the Command Line

Duration: 4 hours

Base Material: Adapted from Data Science 101 Workbook - Unix Getting Started

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Email:

If you have any questions/suggestions: [email protected]

Link to material

https://research.it.iastate.edu/news/2025/isu-workshop-1-introduction-command-line-material-available

Schedule (At a glance)

• Start 1:00 PM: Welcome & setup; CLI concepts and getting to the terminal
• Core topics + hands-on: navigation, viewing files, working with files/dirs, permissions, search, redirects/pipes/chaining
• Break: 2:30–2:40 PM
• Wrap-up 4:55–5:00 PM: Recap and Q&A

See the full, detailed schedule →

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Assessment of Time Feasibility

• This material fits into a four hour session while skipping SSH and text editors
• Each section allows starts with explanations followed by demonstrations
• Remaining time will be given to for hands-on exercises

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Concept map — Current Working Directory

graph TD
  CWD["Current Working Directory"]
  RelPaths["Relative paths"]
  AbsPaths["Absolute paths (/...)"]
  Prompt["Shell prompt"]
  PWD["pwd"]
  CD["cd <path>"]
  Shortcuts["Shortcuts: ., .., ~"]
  WrongDir["Wrong directory"]
  Spaces["Paths with spaces"]
  Quotes["quotes"]

  CWD -->|determines base for| RelPaths
  CWD -. ignored by .-> AbsPaths
  Prompt -->|displays| CWD
  PWD -->|prints| CWD
  CD -->|changes| CWD
  Shortcuts -->|refer to| CWD
  WrongDir -->|breaks| RelPaths
  Spaces -->|need| Quotes

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Download as SVG

Resources for Participants:

• Cheat Sheet PDF
• ExplainShell — Type commands and see breakdown