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Opening your terminal

Needed from M3 onward. Nothing to install, the terminal is already on your computer. It's just a window where you type commands instead of clicking. (Full story in M3's notes.md.)

Open it

  • macOS: press ⌘ + Space, type Terminal, press Enter.
  • Windows: click Start, type PowerShell, press Enter. (Use PowerShell, not the older "Command Prompt", our commands match PowerShell.)
  • Linux: open the Terminal app (often Ctrl + Alt + T).

You should now see: a window with some text ending in a prompt: a $ (macOS/Linux) or > (Windows), and a blinking cursor.

Check it works

Type this and press Enter: 

pwd
You should now see: the path of the folder you're currently in (e.g. /Users/yourname, /home/yourname, or C:\Users\yourname). If you see that, your terminal works, you're ready for the Python install guide.

Stuck? You can't harm anything by typing here. If a command seems to "hang," press Ctrl-C to stop it and get your prompt back.