How do you write commands in terminal?

[Luis Ortega]

I found some information in another thread that instructed one to write some commands in terminal but I have never used terminal and have no idea what I actually need to write.
Can anyone please advise me on how to translate the instructions into what exactly should be typed into terminal?
Spaces, special characters, anything?
All I know how to do is start the app and then I am faced with some text and characters that are already on the screen.
The instructions were:

Open a Terminal and run some commands:
cd /replace/this/with/the/path/to/contents/of/extracted/zip/file/ #this path probably is Downloads/360ControllerInstall
sudo sh 360ControllerInstall.sh

Thanks a lot for any advice.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

well what is it you want to do? Why do you need to do it through the terminal?

 

[broken-chaos]

You type commands straight into the Terminal.app window. Anytime there's a prompt on the Terminal ending with "$", you're good to start entering commands. When a program is running, it may ask you for information. Just start typing and hit enter when you've finished typing whatever it asked you for. It's quite similar to using old MS-DOS commands, for a comparison point - though sufficiently more advanced and different that you shouldn't rely on old DOS knowledge for command names or such.

Open a Terminal and run some commands:
cd /replace/this/with/the/path/to/contents/of/extracted/zip/file/ #this path probably is Downloads/360ControllerInstall
sudo sh 360ControllerInstall.sh

Sounds like you downloaded a program that installs from the Terminal!

1. Unzip whatever file you were given, if you haven't already.
2. Open up the Terminal (if it's not open already) and wait for the $ prompt (should look something like 'Lightning:~ broken_chaos$' with your machine name and username instead of mine!).
3. Type in 'cd ' (no quotes, but with that space at the end!).
4. Go to the Finder and find the folder you unzipped. Click-and-drag the folder (likely named, judging by what you said, "360ControllerInstall") to the terminal. It should enter a really long path automatically!
5. The entire line should now read something like 'cd /Users/your_name/Downloads/360ControllerInstall'. Don't worry if it's not exact, since you may not have it in your Downloads folder, but it should be something *like* that.
6. Hit enter. You'll see the prompt change to something like 'Lightning:360ControllerInstall broken_chaos$' - again, with your machine name and username.
7. Type in 'sudo sh 360ControllerInstall.sh' as per the instructions you were given. It will ask you for your administrator password, so be sure that you trust wherever you got the program from!
8. Follow/answer whatever, if any, questions or instructions presented to you, until you reach the prompt ending in the '$' again.

Hopefully, if everything went well, your program should be installed now.

 

[Luis Ortega]

You type commands straight into the Terminal.app window. Anytime there's a prompt on the Terminal ending with "$", you're good to start entering commands. When a program is running, it may ask you for information. Just start typing and hit enter when you've finished typing whatever it asked you for. It's quite similar to using old MS-DOS commands, for a comparison point - though sufficiently more advanced and different that you shouldn't rely on old DOS knowledge for command names or such.


Sounds like you downloaded a program that installs from the Terminal!

1. Unzip whatever file you were given, if you haven't already.
2. Open up the Terminal (if it's not open already) and wait for the $ prompt (should look something like 'Lightning:~ broken_chaos$' with your machine name and username instead of mine!).
3. Type in 'cd ' (no quotes, but with that space at the end!).
4. Go to the Finder and find the folder you unzipped. Click-and-drag the folder (likely named, judging by what you said, "360ControllerInstall") to the terminal. It should enter a really long path automatically!
5. The entire line should now read something like 'cd /Users/your_name/Downloads/360ControllerInstall'. Don't worry if it's not exact, since you may not have it in your Downloads folder, but it should be something *like* that.
6. Hit enter. You'll see the prompt change to something like 'Lightning:360ControllerInstall broken_chaos$' - again, with your machine name and username.
7. Type in 'sudo sh 360ControllerInstall.sh' as per the instructions you were given. It will ask you for your administrator password, so be sure that you trust wherever you got the program from!
8. Follow/answer whatever, if any, questions or instructions presented to you, until you reach the prompt ending in the '$' again.

Hopefully, if everything went well, your program should be installed now.

Thanks a lot. That worked.

 

[broken-chaos]

Thanks a lot. That worked.

You're welcome - glad I could help!