Shell
The interpreter that executes commands that are typed as string
Prompt
The visual cue that indicates that an interactive shell is waiting for the user to type a command
Command
The name of a program to run
Option
The part of the command line that adjusts the behavior of a command
Argument
The part of the command line that specifies the target that the command should operate on
Physical Console
The hardware display & keyboard to interact w/ a system
Virtual Console
One of multiple logical consoles that can each support an independent login session
Terminal
An interface that provides a display for output & a keyboard for input to a shell session
“tail -n 5 /var/log/messages”
Displays the last five lines of the /var/log/messages file
Semicolon ;
Separates commands on the same line
“passwd”
Used to change a user’s password
“file”
Displays the file type
Pressing Tab
Completes commands, file names, & options
“!number”
Re-executes a specific command in the history list
Ctrl+A
Jumps to the beginning of the command line
“history”
Displays the list of previously executed commands
Esc+
Copies the last argument or previous commands
Contains persistent, system-specific configuration data
/etc
is the top of the system’s file-system hierarchy
/
contains user home directories
/home
contains files to boot the system
/boot
contains system files to access hardware
/dev
is the administrative superuser’s home directory
/root
contains regular commands & utilities
/usr/bin