The Exploit HQ

Explained Live · lesson 4 · 2026-09-02 · updated 2026-10-12

Kali Linux for Absolute Beginners — Your First Hour in the Terminal

Before you start

Kali Linux is the operating system that security professionals use for penetration testing and ethical hacking — and in this video, you’re going to learn exactly how to get started with it, from zero. We’re covering what Kali Linux is, how to navigate the terminal, and how to run your first real commands. Let’s get into it.

First — what is Kali Linux?

What is Kali Linux?

An operating system is the software that runs your computer. Windows and macOS are operating systems, and so is Kali Linux — except Kali is free and built specifically for security work. It comes pre-loaded with hundreds of tools for network scanning, password testing, and web security research. It is what penetration testers and security researchers around the world actually use on the job.

Here is what we are covering today.

What we’ll learn

We start at the very beginning — opening a terminal for the first time — and work through each command one step at a time. Every word gets explained. Nothing is assumed.

Let’s begin. Open the terminal. On Kali, you can click the terminal icon in your taskbar, or right-click the desktop and choose Open Terminal Here.

You will see a line that ends with a dollar sign, or a hash sign if you are running as the root user. That line is called the prompt. It simply means the computer is ready and waiting for you to type. Everything we do in this tutorial goes right here.

Let’s type the very first command. It is a single word — who am I.

whoami — find out who you are

whoami
Part What it does
whoami asks the system to print the name of the current logged-in user

That is the entire command — one word, no spaces, nothing else. The system will reply with your username. It is the simplest possible command, and a perfect first one: it proves the terminal is working, and that the system knows who you are.

The system replied with your username. One line, one answer. That back-and-forth is the heart of how the terminal works. You type a command, you press Enter, and the computer answers on the lines below.

Now let’s find out where we are in the file system.

pwd — print your current location

pwd
Part What it does
pwd Print Working Directory — shows the full path to the folder you are currently in

P W D stands for Print Working Directory. A directory is just what Linux calls a folder. This command prints the full path to the folder you are currently standing in. Think of it as asking your GPS for your current address.

That path is your home folder. Every user in Linux gets their own home folder as a personal starting point. The path is usually slash home, then your username — or slash root if you are the root user. Any time you open a fresh terminal, this is where you land.

Now let’s see what is inside this folder.

ls — list what’s here

ls
Part What it does
ls list — shows every file and folder in your current location

L S stands for list. It shows you everything in your current folder. Files and folders appear color-coded so you can tell them apart at a glance.

Those are the contents of your home directory. On a fresh Kali install there will not be many items — that is expected. We are learning the command, not the contents.

Now let’s see everything, including files that are normally hidden.

ls -la — see hidden files too

ls -la
Part What it does
ls list files and folders
-l long format — show permissions, owner, and file size
-a all — include hidden files, which start with a dot

In Linux, any file or folder whose name starts with a dot is hidden by default. A plain ls skips them completely. The dash a flag means show all — hidden or not. The dash l flag switches to the long format, which adds details: who owns each file, how big it is, and when it was last changed. You can stack both flags together as dash l a.

Now you can see much more. The entries starting with a dot are hidden files — things like your shell settings and your command history. Every user account has these, quietly managing your preferences in the background. A plain ls would never show them.

Now let’s move around. The command for changing your location is cd.

cd — change directory

cd /
Part What it does
cd change directory — move to a different folder
/ the root of the file system — the very top, where everything begins

C D stands for change directory. A single forward slash means the root — not the root user, but the root directory. It is the very top of the entire file system, and every other folder on the system lives inside it. Type cd, a space, then a single forward slash.

No output — and that is correct. When a Linux command succeeds silently, that is a good sign. It moved us to the root without complaint. Now let’s look around.

Type ls slash to see what lives at the very top of the system.

ls /

These are the main folders that make up the Linux operating system. A few of them are worth knowing right now.

Key folders in Linux

Slash home is where user folders live — yours is in there. Slash etc is where system settings and configuration files are stored. If something controls how the system behaves, it is probably in here. Slash usr slash bin is where most programs and tools are installed. Slash var is where logs, temporary files, and data that changes over time gets stored. You will see these four folders constantly as you work in Linux.

Now let’s go back home. The tilde character is a shortcut that always means your home folder, from anywhere on the system.

cd ~

And confirm we are back.

pwd

Home. The tilde shortcut works no matter where you are in the file system. File it away — you will reach for it constantly.

Now let’s find the security tools. On Kali, most of them live in one place.

Listing installed tools

ls /usr/bin | head -20
Part What it does
ls /usr/bin list the programs installed in the main tools folder
| pipe — send the output of the first command into the next one
head -20 show only the first 20 lines — keeps the output manageable

Slash usr slash bin is where programs are installed on a Linux system, and Kali comes with hundreds of them. There are too many to read at once, so we use the pipe. The pipe symbol — that vertical bar — chains two commands together. The output of ls becomes the input of head, and head shows us just the first 20 lines. The pipe is one of the most powerful ideas in the Linux terminal, and you will use it constantly.

Kali comes loaded with security tools already installed. That was just the first 20 names in the list. Tools like gobuster, nikto, sqlmap, and nmap are all in there, ready to learn.

Let’s confirm one specific tool is installed and ready to use.

Confirming a tool — nmap –version

nmap --version
Part What it does
nmap a network scanner — one of the first tools every security professional learns
--version ask the program to report which version is installed

Nmap is a network scanner. It looks at computers on a network and tells you which ports — which numbered doors — are open, and what is listening behind them. It is one of the very first tools every security professional learns to use. The double-dash version flag simply asks it to identify itself and confirm it is installed.

Nmap is installed and ready. That version number is all the confirmation we need. You just ran your first security tool on Kali Linux.

Here is everything you learned today.

Commands you now know

You ran seven real commands on a Kali Linux terminal. You found out who you are, where you are, and what is around you. You navigated all the way to the root of the file system and back. You saw the tools folder, and you confirmed that Nmap is installed and waiting. If you are following along for the first time, go back and repeat each command until it feels natural. There is no shortcut for hands-on practice.

One rule — always.

Before you go

Every tool in Kali is built for learning and for authorized security work. Only ever point them at systems you own, or systems where you have clear written permission to test. That rule is not optional — it is the line between ethical security work and a criminal offense.

In the next tutorial, we take Nmap and run your very first network scan — step by step, from zero, exactly like today. Thanks for learning with The Exploit HQ. Practice those commands, and I will see you in the next one.