Terminal/iTerm

I recently switched from windows and was looking into command prompt and getting the hang of using it. I know that Terminal is the command line program for mac os, and i also got iTerm, i was wondering if anyone knew of any sites that were good for learning more about using Terminal.

Since the underlying substructure of Mac OS X is essentially a Unix type system, going to any number of Unix/Linux sites for learning would probably be most helpful, a lot of the commands I've seen here are in line with with *nix systems so carrying them over to Mac OS X is a reletively easy process.

Here is a quick overview of the available commands.

For more detailed information, go to any bookstore and pick up a good book on either the Linux bash command prompt, or even better, the FreeBSD command prompt (identically the one Mac OS X uses).

great thanks a bunch

YOur so welcome Alex.....anytime !

Don't hesitate to ask questions.

I have to ask though. What is it you want to do in a terminal that you used to do in a command prompt on a windows box? Certainly terminal is nice for the random whois, nslookup, ssh, ftp, ping, telnet. But other then that what sort of thing were you looking to get done? My point in a nutshell is that he terminal is not a great place to be playing around if you don't have a specific need to be in there.

I use terminal to script and automate all sorts of functions. Most recently someone wanted to rename all their jpgs to be appended with the creation date. Took a whopping 11 lines of bash scripting to have a single command script that will do it automatically now.

There is no need to be afraid of the command line. It's a tool. Not only that, it's an extremely efficient tool. One that's been continually improved for more than 20 years. I'm not sure why the Mac community in general seems to avoid it, it's one of the best things about OS X.

When put in context of the OPs command line experience. That is where you get the hesitation.

I agree with Dysfunction. The command line is an amazingly efficient tool for a large range of functions. I would not be without it. I have always thought that it was a shame that the Windows and Mac worlds eschewed the command line in favor of the GUI. Both have much to offer. Both should be learned and used regularly.

This is one of the things I really like about the Linux world. The command line and GUI are almost equal environments. New programs are still created for both, and users are encouraged to learn and use both. When you restrict yourself to GUI only, you lose so much of the power that your machine has.