the map is the territory

whoami

Let’s learn more about the terminal by asking it about ourselves.

In your terminal, type:
$: whoami

You should see:
garthbrooksfan69

(Or, whatever is your username on this computer.)

It’s good to know where you stand with your computer. It has a concept of ‘you’, but doesn’t really know you. Everything it knows is based on how you’ve represented yourself in text.

whoami

description: tells you your chosen username
likes: just to be called upon
gives: just yr username

To be fully accurate, there are many types of shells, each their own language, with Bash being but one of them. Your computer may be running one called zsh too. Bash is the most common, and likely what you’re seeing, so I didn’t wanna complicate things too much.⌧
not a black mirror⌧
One fun one to try is uname -a. Now you’ll get the computer’s operating systen name and a whoooole bunch more. Computer didn’t wanna open up unless you asked it to.⌧
Luckily, the terminal is already installed, just slightly hidden away. You can find it with spotlight by clicking the magnifying icon in your menubar (or typing cmd+space) then searching for terminal. Alternately, you can find it in applications > utilities > terminal.⌧
Linux loves the terminal. No matter what ‘distro’ you are using, the terminal will likely be prominent. On Ubuntu, for example, you can find it by clicking the programs bar and searching terminal.⌧
Windows can be a bit difficult, and to be honest, I don’t know enough to be helpful. If you are on windows 10, you can install linux within your windows computer. You can read a guide about how to install Ubuntu(a popular distribution of linux) here: Ubuntu’s tutorial to install on windows 10
If you are not on 10, I’ve heard good things about the program ‘git bash’. Here is an in depth tutorial on installing git bash ⌧