If you are using Ubuntu Linux, there are often articles recommending that you run commands. To do this, you must type these commands in a terminal window. Here are several ways to open one, including a quick keyboard shortcut.
The tips in this article have been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. They should also apply to other Linux distributions using the GNOME desktop environment.
Warning: Be careful when executing the commands you find online. Make sure they are from a trusted source and that you understand what you are performing.
Use a keyboard shortcut to open a terminal
To quickly open a terminal window at any time, press Ctrl + Alt + T. A GNOME Terminal graphics window will appear right away.
Launch a terminal window from the dashboard
You will find the Terminal app included with your other installed apps. To find them, click on the “Show applications” button in the lower left corner of your screen, on the “dash” bar.
Type “Terminal” and press Enter to find and launch the Terminal shortcut. You can also locate the Terminal icon in the list of all apps that appears here and click on it.
Run a command to open a terminal
You can also press Alt + F2 to open the Run Command dialog box. Type gnome-terminal here and press Enter to open a terminal window.
You can also run many other commands from the Alt + F2 window. However, you won’t see any information like you would when running the command in a normal window. The Run dialog box is useful in situations like this where you just want to run an application. For example, you can press Alt + F2, type firefox and press “Enter to launch a Firefox browser window.”