Unleashing the Mac OS X Terminal for Absolute Beginners (Udemy.com)
A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to the Mac terminal and Bash environment specifically designed for novice Mac users
Created by: Jason Taylor
Last updated August 2017
What you will learn
- Use the Mac Terminal app with confidence
- Write simple bash scripts
- Customize the bash shell environment
- change permissions on files and folders when needed
- Create, move, rename, delete and modify files with ease using the Terminal
Course Description
Overview
This is a comprehensive course designed to show how to use the Terminal app in Mac OS X and many Bash shell commands, many overlap with Linux or other *nix variants.
The course currently covers the following:
- Setup and installation of tools used in this course (outside the Terminal app)
- How to navigate while in the Terminal (file and directory oriented)
- How to manage files and directories (create, edit, delete, etc)
- Temporarily elevating to admin rights when needed
- Changing permissions on files and folders
- Writing simple Bash scripts
Each one of these concepts is demonstrated in a methodological, step-by-step manner so you can follow along for easy learning.
Course Outline
Introduction provides an overview for the course.
Installation provides step-by-step instructions on how to setup Terminal and all the related tools for the course.
The Basics provides the first look at several core or foundational commands. While learn how to get around, manage files and even some simple ways to use the output of commands.
After the basics are covered, we dive into permissions related concepts by assuming admin user while we change permissions on files and folders.
Finally, we cover some more Advanced topics like writing a Bash shell script and customizing the Bash environment.
Course Features
Presentations provide audio/video training of conceptual ideas in each major area or introduction of new concepts.
Screencasts provide a video of the instructor's computer system with any actions, commands, or screens displayed and narrated. There are several hours of screencat video content -- it makes up the vast majority of the course. Any command line based screencast will include a command listing in the lecture downloads.
At the end of each section is a document lecture with a listing of commands or a brief tutorial regarding the video content covered during that section.
Instructor Details
- 4.7 Rating
1,263 Reviews
Jason Taylor
With nearly 25 years of programming and software development experience, I started out teaching myself programming while in High School. I put myself through college working for a local Internet Service Provider as a programmer. Before finishing college, I developed and sold an award winning website to a Dot-Com start-up. After college, I have worked at several companies ranging from start-ups to large enterprises focusing on Java and client-side technologies (HTML/CSS/JavaScript). Throughout my career, I have opportunity to learn many software development best practices and exposure to several version control systems.
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Reviews
By Jordan Heaton on 12/8/2024
I like that it wasn't a super long and in depth course, making it easy to complete. The downside is that it only scratches the surface of the Terminal in MacOS. I wish we had explored Homebrew and the package manager associated with it. Also, the default shell in MacOS is now ZSH. It would be nice to have a quick tutorial on how to switch back to BASH as that's something most beginners won't be able to do.
By Caroline Jones on 5/19/2021
Straightforward, concise, but not so fast that you can't follow along. While it's not the most comprehensive course out there, it covers the basics well and I appreciate the context he provided as he was explaining not just what to do but why it works that way. I feel more confident about several things now than I did before.
By Anonymized User on 3/31/2020
Very focused and on the point, no unnecessary information. There are a few things you can skip if you don't need it, but you can learn some useful things you didn't now about.
By Serg . on 6/24/2019
Very well done! Covered the basics of Mac OS Terminal and bash commands. Instructor was clear and effective. Would definitely consider a 2nd course on additional bash shell scripts and more detailed Mac-specific related topics.
By Maciej Preus on 1/12/2019
Instruktor wyjaśnia krok po kroku z ciągle widocznym ekranem swego komputera, tak że biorący udział w kursie może na bieżąco śledzić, co się dzieje. Możliwość zatrzymania wykładu w każdej chwili, a nawet cofnięcia o pięć sekund jest świetnym rozwiązaniem - można sprawdzić rozumienie komend, upewnić się o poprawnym ich wpisywaniu itp. Dobry angielski, zrozumiała wymowa, umiarkowane tempo. W jednym z ostatnich wykładów instruktor mówił co innego, a napisy pokazywały co innego, ale to już drobiazg. Materiały do pobrania (pliki pdf) dość ubogie - przydałby się opis tych komend do późniejszego przejrzenia.
By Dan Sedlak on 7/9/2018
9.5 out of 10 would do the course again :) It would be nice to include some challenges. --> Showing the way how to get the stuff done --> Explaining the challenge (what should the user achieve?) --> mentioning the user should pause and do the challenge to test their knowledge (of course just if the want to) --> showing the solution
By Santosh on 11/23/2017
Brilliant. Love shorter courses that get to using usefull and practical in a quick practical way. This is also the nature of the topic but Jason did a great job. I feel there should be a course that builds off of this diving more into BASH Scripting and programming. I'd love to follow this creator.
By 昌洋 中本 on 2/16/2017
This course is a good introduction for new bash users. It focuses on basic operations that engineers will use in every day. You can learn essentials of bash in very short time.
By Hansel Perez on 11/19/2016
The instructor has a friendly voice that actually makes a difference when learning something as daunting as the Terminal. He provided simple and organized PDFs that I can use as a quick reference. Overall, I feel like this course provided a solid foundation for me to build on. Really worth your time if you're interested in learning the Terminal.
By Monica Arnon on 1/6/2016
A not-too-hot, not-too-cold overview of the OS X Terminal. Great resource for noobs like me who needed to find a quick bash course to take while in the middle of another course. You'll definitely want to expand on your knowledge fairly quickly after this, but this one is a fine start in getting you where you need to go.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 94 / 100












