← Lab 1
10:00

The terminal — on your own machine

Remember this
The terminal is the same computer, driven by typing. pwd where am I · ls what is here · mkdir make a folder · cd go into it.
Core
Open Terminal (Mac) or PowerShell (Windows), then: pwd · ls · mkdir bio-python · cd bio-python · pwd.
Finished when
Inside bio-python, python --version prints a version number.
Going further
Keep the folder — every lab from now on lives in it.

If you get stuck

  1. 1Check the spelling — the terminal is unforgiving, and silent about it
  2. 2Lost? pwd tells you where you are, ls what is there
  3. 3One command at a time, and read what it printed
  4. 4Ask your neighbour, then a demonstrator
  5. 5Ask Gemini — after you have tried the first four

Try it Yourself — Make Your Course Folder

Five steps, following the prompts

The terminal will walk you through it. By the end you'll have made a folder called bio-python and stepped inside it — the exact move you'll do for real, on your own machine, next.

What you just did

You navigated a computer's file system from the keyboard — found where you were, looked around, created something, and moved into it. That's the whole job. Everything else is more of the same.

Stuck? Hit show hint. And remember — ↺ reset starts you over any time.

practice terminal
Step 1/5: See where you are — type pwd
practice sandbox — type 'help' to see what you can do. You can't break anything here.
you@mac ~ %