1.5. Opening a Shell Prompt

The desktop offers access to a shell prompt, an application that allows you to type commands instead of using a graphical interface for all computing activities. While the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Step By Step Guide primarily focuses on performing tasks using the graphical interface and graphical tools, it is sometimes useful and faster to perform tasks from a shell prompt. Refer to Chapter 4 Shell Prompt Basics for further details.

You can open a shell prompt by selecting Applications (the main menu on the panel) => System Tools => Terminal.

You can also start a shell prompt by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing Open Terminal from the menu.

To exit a shell prompt, click the X button on the upper right corner of the shell prompt window, type exit at the prompt, or press [Ctrl]-[D] at the prompt.