--- layout: page author: De Vita Gianmarco title: Open the Shell ---

The tool that allows us to interact with the system with the shell is the terminal. There are mainly two ways to access to the terminal on a MacOS system.

Through the Finder

  1. Open a new Finder window by clicking on the icon on the system dock.
    2. Open Finder
  2. On the menu bar, click on Go.
    3. Click on Go
  3. Click on Utilities.
    4. Click on Utilities
  4. Look for Terminal and click on it.
    5. Open Terminal

Through Spotlight

  1. You can use the shortcut cmd+space to access to Spotlight.
    2. Access to Spotlight
  2. Then search for Terminal.
    3. Search Terminal
  3. Click on the Terminal icon displayed as result.
    4. Open Terminal

As you open the Terminal, a new blank window opens:

Terminal Blank Window

You can notice that the top lines in the window follow this structure:

{% highlight ruby linenos %} Last login: Day Month 2 hh:mm:ss on console Device-name:~ username$ {% endhighlight %}

The tilde (~) just before your username means that the current position in which the terminal is working is the Home directory. The gray spot next to the symbol $ after your username indicates that you can write instructions in that space.

Now, you are ready to try and use some simple commands to familiarize with this interface.

Notice that you can work simultaneously on multiple sessions of the Terminal. Just by pushing cmd+T, a new blank window will open without closing the current.