Most high-throughput bioinformatics work these days takes place on the Linux command line. The programs which do the majority of the computational heavy lifting — genome assemblers, read mappers, and annotation tools — are designed to work best when used with a command-line interface. Because the command line can be an intimidating environment, many biologists learn the bare minimum needed to get their analysis tools working. This means that they miss out on the power of Linux to customise their environment and automate many parts of the bioinformatics workflow. This course will introduce the Linux command line environment from scratch and teach students how to make the most of its tools to achieve a high level of productivity when working with biological data.