Many UNIX programs run through the command line. Once you know the commands this can be very fast and efficient. When you start it may also seem the most difficult. At the prompt, enter the command and any switches or parameters. The command is the name of the program.
Switches are indicators to tell the program what to do.
Parameters are the input and output files and other data that the program will work on. The program documentation, available from the software pages, tells you about the functions, switches and parameters of the programs. The computer centre has a powerpoint tutorial on Unix basic commands on their training page . X-windows also lets graphical programs run across a network. Note the IP address shown for the ethernet adapter.