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Terminal Guide for Beginners — Prepare for Claude Code with Ollama

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Terminal Guide for Beginners — Prepare for Claude Code with Ollama

What You Will Learn

By the end of this post, you will be able to:

  • Open Terminal on macOS, Windows, and Linux
  • Use basic commands to navigate your computer
  • Install Ollama
  • Install Claude Code
  • Run Claude Code with Ollama

1. 🖥️ What is the Terminal?

The Terminal (also called Command Line or CLI) is a program that lets you talk to your computer by typing instead of clicking with a mouse. It looks like a black screen where you type instructions, and the computer follows them.

For example:

  • Instead of dragging a file to a new folder — you type mv myfile.txt newfolder/
  • Instead of double-clicking an installer — you type npm install or pip install

⚠️ Don't be scared! The Terminal won't break your computer if you are careful. Take it step by step.

2. 🚀 Opening the Terminal

🍎 macOS

  1. Press Command ⌘ + Space to open Spotlight Search
  2. Type Terminal
  3. Press Enter
# You will see something like:
Last login: Fri May 9 10:00:00 on ttys000
yourname@MacBook ~ %

💡 ~ means you are in your Home folder

🪟 Windows

Windows has two options:

Option A — PowerShell (easy, built-in):

  1. Press Windows Key and type PowerShell
  2. Press Enter

Option B — WSL / Ubuntu (better, recommended for Claude Code):

  1. Press Windows Key and type Microsoft Store
  2. Search Ubuntu → click Install
  3. Once installed, open Ubuntu like a normal app
  4. First time: set a username + password

💡 Note: your password won't show while typing — this is completely normal!

# PowerShell looks like:
PS C:\Users\YourName>

# WSL/Ubuntu looks like:
yourname@DESKTOP:~$

💡 WSL = Windows Subsystem for Linux — it's like running Linux inside Windows

🐧 Linux (Ubuntu / Debian)

  • Press Ctrl + Alt + T — Terminal opens immediately
  • Or right-click on the Desktop and choose "Open Terminal"
yourname@ubuntu:~$

3. 📂 Basic Commands

Now let's learn 12 essential commands you will use every day.

📍 3.1 — Know Where You Are

| Command | macOS/Linux | Windows (PowerShell) | |---------|-------------|----------------------| | Show current location | pwd | pwd |

# Type:
pwd

# Result:
/Users/yourname

pwd = Print Working Directory — shows the folder you are currently in.

📋 3.2 — List Files in a Folder

| Command | macOS/Linux | Windows (PowerShell) | |---------|-------------|----------------------| | List files | ls | ls or dir | | List with details | ls -la | ls -la |

ls

# Result:
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Pictures

# More details:
ls -la

📁 3.3 — Move Between Folders

| Action | Command | |--------|---------| | Enter a folder | cd foldername | | Go back one level | cd .. | | Go to Home folder | cd ~ |

# Enter Downloads folder
cd Downloads

# Go back one folder
cd ..

# Go back to Home
cd ~

🗂️ 3.4 — Create a New Folder

# Create a new folder
mkdir my-projects

# Create multiple folders at once
mkdir folder1 folder2 folder3

📄 3.5 — Create a New File

# macOS / Linux
touch myfile.txt

# Windows (PowerShell)
New-Item myfile.txt

🗑️ 3.6 — Delete a File or Folder

# Delete a file
rm myfile.txt

# Delete a folder and everything inside it
rm -rf myfolder

⚠️ Careful! rm -rf deletes permanently — there is no Recycle Bin!

📋 3.7 — Copy & Move Files

# Copy a file
cp original.txt copy.txt

# Rename a file (move in place)
mv oldname.txt newname.txt

# Move a file into a folder
mv myfile.txt Documents/

🔍 3.8 — Read a File

# Show file content
cat myfile.txt

# Scroll through a long file
less myfile.txt
# (Press Q to quit)

🧹 3.9 — Clear the Screen

clear

💻 3.10 — Pro Tip: Tab Autocomplete

Press Tab halfway through typing and Terminal will auto-complete for you.

# Example:
cd Down[TAB]   →   cd Downloads/

This saves a lot of typing and helps avoid typos!

4. 🦙 Installing Ollama

Ollama is software that lets you run AI models (like Llama, Gemma, Mistral) directly on your own computer — without needing the internet!

🍎 macOS

# Option 1: Download the app from:
# https://ollama.com/download

# Option 2: Install via Homebrew (if you have it):
brew install ollama

🐧 Linux / 🪟 Windows (WSL)

# Copy and paste this into Terminal:
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

Wait 1–2 minutes for installation to complete.

🪟 Windows (PowerShell without WSL)

Go to https://ollama.com/download and download the Windows installer (.exe), then install it like a normal app.

✅ Verify Ollama is Working

ollama --version

# Result (example):
ollama version 0.3.x

⬇️ Download Your First AI Model

# Download Llama 3
ollama pull llama3

# Or a smaller model (faster on low RAM):
ollama pull llama3.2:1b

# Check downloaded models:
ollama list

💡 Full llama3 needs ~16GB RAM. If your computer is slow, use llama3.2:1b instead.

5. 🤖 Installing Claude Code

Claude Code is an AI coding tool by Anthropic that runs directly from your Terminal!

✅ Prerequisite: Node.js

Claude Code requires Node.js version 18+.

# Check if Node.js is installed:
node --version

# If you get an error, install Node.js:

# macOS (using Homebrew):
brew install node

# Linux / WSL:
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_22.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

# Windows: download from https://nodejs.org

📦 Install Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Wait 2–3 minutes, then verify:

claude --version

6. 🔗 Connecting Claude Code with Ollama

Now the exciting part! We connect Claude Code to use Ollama instead of the Anthropic API — meaning it's fully free and works offline!

Step 1: Start Ollama

# Start the Ollama server — keep this window open!
ollama serve

Open a second Terminal window for the next steps. Ollama needs to keep running in the background.

Step 2: Configure Claude Code

# Run these in the second Terminal window:
claude config set model ollama/llama3
claude config set api_base_url http://localhost:11434

Step 3: Start Using It!

# Go to your project folder
cd ~/Documents/my-project

# Start Claude Code
claude

Claude Code will open a prompt and the AI — running entirely on your computer — will respond!

7. 🎯 Quick Reference Cheat Sheet

NAVIGATION
──────────────────────────────────────
pwd              → Where am I?
ls               → List files
cd foldername    → Enter a folder
cd ..            → Go back one level
cd ~             → Go to Home folder

FILES & FOLDERS
──────────────────────────────────────
mkdir name       → Create a folder
touch file.txt   → Create a file (macOS/Linux)
cp a.txt b.txt   → Copy a file
mv a.txt b.txt   → Move or rename a file
rm file.txt      → Delete a file
rm -rf folder    → Delete a folder (careful!)
cat file.txt     → Read a file
clear            → Clear the screen

OLLAMA
──────────────────────────────────────
ollama serve          → Start Ollama server
ollama list           → Show available models
ollama pull llama3    → Download a model
ollama run llama3     → Chat with AI in terminal

CLAUDE CODE
──────────────────────────────────────
claude           → Start Claude Code
claude --version → Check version

8. ❓ Common Problems & Fixes

❌ command not found

Meaning: The command you typed wasn't found on your computer.

Fix: Check your spelling, or use Tab to autocomplete.

❌ Permission denied

Meaning: You need admin permission to run that command.

# Add sudo before the command:
sudo command-here

# Type your password and press Enter
# (Password won't show while typing — that's normal!)

❌ Ollama: connection refused

Meaning: The Ollama server is not running.

# Terminal window 1:
ollama serve

# Terminal window 2:
claude

❌ Claude Code: API error

Meaning: Claude Code is looking for an Anthropic API key — configure it to use Ollama instead.

claude config set model ollama/llama3
claude config set api_base_url http://localhost:11434

🏁 Summary

Great work! You now know how to:

  • ✅ Open Terminal on macOS, Windows (PowerShell & WSL), and Linux
  • ✅ Use commands: pwd, ls, cd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm, cat, clear
  • ✅ Install Ollama and download an AI model
  • ✅ Install Claude Code
  • ✅ Connect Claude Code with Ollama (offline & free!)

Written by: [Panha] · check more here