Conquer the command line: The Raspberry Pi terminal guide

Conquer the command line,

3rd Edition

Raspberry Pi Essentials: Conquer the command line, 3rd Edition

by Richard Smedley

ISBN: 978-1-916868-38-0

Copyright © 2025 Richard Smedley

Printed in the United Kingdom

Published by Raspberry Pi Ltd, 194 Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 0AB

Raspberry Pi Ireland Ltd, 3 Dublin Landings, D01 C4E0, [email protected]

Editor: Rob Zwetsloot

Copy Editor: Nicola King

Interior Designer: Sara Parodi

Production: Brian Jepson

Photographer: Brian O’Halloran

Illustrator: Sam Alder

Graphics Editor: Natalie Turner

Publishing Director: Brian Jepson

Head of Design: Jack Willis

CEO: Eben Upton

May 2025: Third Edition

February 2019: Second Edition

January 2016: First Edition

The publisher, and contributors accept no responsibility in respect of any omissions or errors relating to goods, products or services referred to or advertised in this book. Except where otherwise noted, the content of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Welcome

Sometimes only words will do. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were a great advance, creating an easy route into computers for non-technical users. But for complex tasks, GUIs can block off choices and require a circuitous route even for simple tasks.

Enter the command line: the blinking cursor many thought had faded away in the 1990s. For getting instructions from user to computer — in a clear, quick, and unambiguous form — nothing beats the command line. It never disappeared on UNIX and Linux systems, and thanks to Raspberry Pi OS, a new generation is discovering how it simplifies complex tasks and lets you carry out simple ones instantly.

If you're not comfortable when faced with the $ prompt, don't panic! In this fully updated book, we'll quickly make you feel at home and get you familiar with the terminal on Raspberry Pi (or any Mac and Linux computer). Updated for the latest Raspberry Pi software, this book has everything you need to get started.

You can find information about this book, including errata, in its GitHub repository at rpimag.co/commandlinegit. If you’ve found what you believe is a mistake or error in the book, please let us know by using our errata submission form at rpimag.co/cmdlinefeedback.

About the author

Since soldering together his first computer — a ZX81 kit — and gaining an amateur radio licence as GW6PCB, Richard has fallen in and out of love with technology. Swapping the ZX81 for a guitar, and dropping ham radio for organic horticulture, he eventually returned to the command line, beginning with a computer to run his own business, and progressing to running all the computers of an international sustainability institution. Now he writes about Free Software and teaches edible landscaping.

Colophon

Raspberry Pi is an affordable way to do something useful, or to do something fun.

Democratising technology — providing access to tools — has been our motivation since the Raspberry Pi project began. By driving down the cost of general-purpose computing to below $5, we’ve opened up the ability for anybody to use computers in projects that used to require prohibitive amounts of capital. Today, with barriers to entry being removed, we see Raspberry Pi computers being used everywhere, from interactive museum exhibits and schools to national postal sorting offices and government call centres. Kitchen table businesses all over the world have been able to scale and find success in a way that just wasn’t possible in a world where integrating technology meant spending large sums on laptops and PCs.

Raspberry Pi removes the high entry cost to computing for people across all demographics: while children can benefit from a computing education that previously wasn’t open to them, so too can the many adults who have historically been priced out of using computers for enterprise, entertainment, and creativity. Raspberry Pi eliminates those barriers.

Raspberry Pi Press

store.rpipress.cc

Raspberry Pi Press is your essential bookshelf for all things computing, gaming, and hands-on making. As the official publishing imprint of Raspberry Pi Ltd, we publish a range of titles to help you make the most of your Raspberry Pi hardware. Whether you’re building a PC or building a cabinet, you can discover your passion, learn new skills, and make awesome stuff with our extensive collection of books and magazines.

Raspberry Pi Official Magazine

magazine.raspberrypi.com

Raspberry Pi Official Magazine is a monthly publication for makers, engineers, and enthusiasts who love to create with electronics and computer technology. Each issue is packed with Raspberry Pi–themed projects, tutorials, how-to guides, and the latest community news and events.

Chapter 1

Don’t Panic

We take a look around and discover that things aren’t as strange as they might appear…

It’s not a throwback to the past, but a quick and powerful way of getting your Raspberry Pi to do what you want, without all that repetitive strain injury-inducing menu chasing and icon clicking. The command-line interface was a great step up from manually toggling in your instructions in octal (base-8), using switches on the front of the machine! Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) brought friendly visual metaphor to the computer, losing some power and expressiveness. With Raspberry Pi, you can get the best of both worlds by knowing both: after reading through this guide, you’ll soon be as comfortable at the command prompt as you are at your desktop.

By default, Raspberry Pi OS boots you straight to a GUI, although you can change this behaviour in the settings. The command-line environment is still there: hold down the CTRL+ALT keys and press F1 (the first function key on the keyboard), and you’ll arrive at a virtual console. Press CTRL+ALT+F2 through to F6 and you’ll find five further consoles waiting for you to log in.

Figure 1-1: Anatomy of your command line

You can drop into these any time you like, but for now press CTRL+ALT+F7 and you’ll be back in mouse and menu land. The command line is also available through a program called a terminal emulator (sometimes referred to as a term). You’ll also find people referring to the shell, which is the program that runs in the terminal and interprets your commands. On Raspberry Pi and most GNU/Linux systems, the shell is a program named Bash (the Bourne Again SHell). Don’t worry about the distinction between the terminal and shell for now; just click on the icon at the top of the screen that looks like a black television screen, or go to Accessories > Terminal in the Raspberry Pi menu: the Terminal now awaits your commands.

Look around

If you’re used to looking at files and folders in a file manager,